


She is my copilot

by Swordsoul2000



Series: Drift Bond [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Meetings, Found Family Feels, Gen, Pre-Relationship, The Drift (Pacific Rim), Trust, Trust Issues, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swordsoul2000/pseuds/Swordsoul2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the movie Pacific Rim, was told largely from Raleigh's POV. Now we get Mako's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She is my copilot

**Author's Note:**

> italics - thoughts, and Drift-speak. 
> 
> underline - Japanese (yes, I know I'm lazy, I don't care. I'm not going to humiliate myself with my so very rusty Japanese, and trying to pick out kana on my american keyboard. sue me)
> 
> Special shout out to quigonjinn and snack-size, who's blogs I browsed while writing this. It's possible I absorbed various things I read there, so if you see anything familiar, that's where I got it. 
> 
> Don't own Pacific Rim, even if I bought two copies of the movie.

Mako Mori lifted her umbrella against the storm and walked out into the chaos on the main helipad. Chopper pilots, mechanics, MP's securing the samples from Mutavore that had just been shipped in from Sydeny; all competed with the usual bickering from the two scientists remaining in K-Science – the PPDC's science division – for sheer noise volume. Mako was interested in none of that. Marshal Stacker Pentecost, her Sensei and adoptive father, was due back at any moment, with, he hoped, Raleigh Becket, former Ranger, who was being brought back to pilot his old Jaeger.

Sure enough, there was Sensei's helicopter, just coming in for a landing. Waiting just outside the downdraft zone, Mako angled up her umbrella for a better view as the door opened, and Sensei stepped out, his face impassive as always as he moved toward her. But it was the second figure to exit the chopper, the one who paused and took in the view of the Shatterdome as if coming home for the first time, that caught her attention.

But not so much that she didn't remember the proprieties. Sensei took the umbrella she'd brought for him with a nod, opening it and passing it to Raleigh Becket who had joined them without so much as a blink. Sensei made the introductions. “Mr. Becket, this is Mako Mori. One of our brightest. Also in charge of the Mark III restoration program. She personally handpicked your copilot candidates.”

Before this moment, Mako would have said that she knew Raleigh Becket better than he knew himself. She'd read all of his documentation, watched all of his old interviews, listened to all of the Conn-Pod recordings from each and every one of his drops. She'd damn-near memorized all the analysis done of his fighting style, and typical strategies, and formed opinions of her own regarding each and every one. She'd absorbed all of the available medical data on him, including the data following his final deployment in Anchorage, when the Becket brothers had disobeyed orders to save a fishing vessel, and had lost one of their lives as a result. None of that had prepared her for the man who now stood before her, tired and world-weary, with a grimy face and a tattered sweater under a patched jacket, but kindness was still visible in his blue eyes as he focused fully on her for the first time.

“I imagined him differently.” She blurted to Sensei, thankfully keeping to Japanese so Becket wouldn't understand. Sensei huffed a quiet laugh, understanding what she meant.

“Hey,” Becket said lightly, clearly taking no offense to being talked about behind his back. “Better, or worse?” Or perhaps not _behind_ his back.

Mako froze, unexpectedly caught out, thankful of the fact that she didn't blush easily. Then she recovered herself. “My apologies, Mr. Becket,” she said graciously with a smile she didn't feel. “I've heard so much about you.”

Yet again, he surprised her, contenting himself with a slight nod, a smile visible in his eyes, letting her know without words that he'd already forgiven her slight slip. Mako nodded back in reply. She had been expecting an overgrown boy, an older Chuck Hansen, angry at the world and showing it to everyone. Becket's calm demeanor told her that he'd forgiven the world for what it had done to him, forgiven fate for dealing him so harsh a hand. He had grown up.

They moved to the elevator then, Sensei acknowledging the salutes of the MP's securing the samples with a slight nod, telling Becket, “We'll tour the facility first, and then Ms. Mori will show you to your Jaeger, Mr. Becket.” Becket nodded slightly, one corner of his mouth tightening fractionally at 'your Jaeger', but Mako didn't know what to think about that as she reclaimed Becket's umbrella. She would have thought that Becket would have been eager to get back in the Conn-Pod again, how else would Sensei have lured him back to duty after the way he'd run away before? Or was there something else going on that she didn't know about? She couldn't be sure. Whatever it was, he was here, and willing to cooperate with Sensei's vision.

Her musings were derailed when Dr. Geizsler squawked “Hold the elevator!” and dashed inside, Dr. Gottlieb following hard on his heels despite his cane. The two scientists just barely made it inside the car before the elevator doors closed and they began their descent to the Shatterdome's main floor.

“Stay back, kaiju specimens are extremely rare, so look, but don't touch.” Dr. Geizsler said in his usual abrasive manner, warning Becket back from the large specimen tanks taking up most of the room in the elevator that the former Ranger had been eying curiously.

Sensei took control of the situation before it started to spiral out of control. “Mr. Becket, this is our research team: Dr. Gottlieb and Dr. Geizsler.”

“Ah, nah, call me Newt,” Dr. Geizsler said carelessly, collapsing his umbrella and shucking his rain gear right in the elevator. “Only my mother calls me Doctor.” He turned then on Dr. Gottlieb who was lurking behind one of the tanks. “Hermann, these are human beings, why don't you say hello?”

“I have asked you not to refer to me by my first name around others, I am a doctor with over ten years of doctoral experience...” Dr. Gottlieb began, only for Dr. Geizsler to begin talking over him in one of their never ending squabbles. It was as if they were children who could not resist squabbling for attention. Or at least, Dr. Geizsler was like that, it was hard to tell sometimes.

A glimpse of Dr. Geizsler's infamous tattoos as he rolled up his sleeves caught Becket's attention. “Who's that,Yamarashi?” the former Ranger asked with distant interest, pointing to the design on the biologist's right forearm.

“This little kaiju? Yeah, you've got a good eye.” Dr. Geizsler said, mildly surprised.

“My brother and I took him down in 2017.” was Becket's only response.

And yet again, Dr. Geizsler proved his stunning obliviousness to anything not directly related to kaiju biology. Mako would have thought he'd be aware of who exactly Becket was at that point, that the biologist would have remembered which Jaegers took down his favorite monsters. The reverse was certainly true for all Jaeger groupies that Mako had met. But no, when Dr. Geizler opened his mouth, it was to wax poetic on his favorite subject. “ You know, he was one of the biggest Category III's ever? He was 2500 tons of awesome.” he sighed.

Mako _looked_ at Sensei, a familiar plea for permission to deal with Dr. Geizsler's obsessions with a response Mako considered appropriate. What others considered an appropriate response, was none of Mako's concern in this instance. Sensei merely sighed, and turned his flat gaze on the doctor. Becket didn't respond either, beyond a raised eyebrow.

Apparently, that was enough for Dr. Geizsler to realize he'd mis-stepped. “Or awful. You know, whatever you want to call it.” he backtracked hurriedly.

Dr. Gottlieb had evidently had enough of his colleague’s verbal fumbling and entered the conversation. “Please excuse him, he's a kaiju _groupie_ , he loves them...”

“Shut up Hermann.” Dr. Geizsler broke in. “I don't love them, okay? I _study_ them. And unlike most everyone here, I actually want to see one alive. And up close one day.”

Mako was appalled at exactly how far Dr. Geizsler's foot had shoved down his throat, even if she held the emotion rigidly in check, allowing no one to see it on her face. Two of the people in this elevator had experienced up close and personal encounters with kaiju outside the protection of a Jaeger: herself and Raleigh Becket. Becket's brother had been killed by one, famously while still engaged in a neural handshake. Though this was an unprecedented opportunity to assess Becket's mental state: a man with anger issues like Chuck Hansen would leap on the smaller scientist and beat him to a bloody pulp, a man obsessed with revenge would probably content himself with punching the biologist in the gut. Both options would indicate that the man was psychologically unfit for combat, though with how desperate the situation was, it might not make any difference.

Just then the elevator dinged, indicating that it had reached the main Shatterdome floor, but Mako hung back – just for a moment – to see what Becket would do.

Becket did neither of the possibilities she'd outlined. He merely placed a heavy hand on the scientist's shoulder, gave him a slight shake, and a single, devastating sentence. “Trust me, you don't wanna.” With that, he left the elevator, allowing the doors to close behind him.

Mako led the way to Hanger One, where the three active Jaegers were being stored. It was Crimson's Typhoon's berth from when the Hong Kong Shatterdome was still in full operation, and the decision had been make to store Cherno Alpha and Striker Eureka there as well, for reasons of morale. Both Jaegers should have arrived by now, the two of them having been scheduled to arrive right about the same time. Gipsy Danger, on the other hand, had her own hangar all to herself, given that the final touches to the restoration project were still underway.

“So that's your research division?” Becket asked, sarcasm clearly audible.

Despite the question not needing a response, Sensei answered anyway. “Things have changed. We're not an army anymore, Mr. Becket. We're the Resistance.”

They were at the main doors. Mako keyed in her authorization code, and they hissed open. “Welcome to the Shatterdome.” Sensei said, inviting Becket through into the organized chaos beyond.

Mako watched him closely, but it seemed, at least for now, that Becket was content to look around, not balking at the morass of humanity clogging even this vast space. Of course, the Jaegers took up the most room, but it seemed that wherever Becket had been, it hadn't been in some isolated hut far from human contact as Mako had half been expecting.

The first thing he focused on was the War Clock, mounted right above the doors they had just entered through. “The War Clock, we reset it after every kaiju attack, keeps everyone focused,” Sensei explained, striding past where Becket had stopped to take in the sights. “The frequency of attacks is accelerating.”

“How long till the next reset?” Becket asked, following in their wake.

“A week,” Sensei called back, never turning around to check Becket's progress. “If we're lucky. My experts believe there will be a kaiju attack even before that.”

“This complex used to hold thirty Jaegers in five bays just like this one,” Sensei said, once the sound of pounding footsteps behind them told Mako that Becket had caught up. “Now we only have four Jaegers left.”

Becket looked shaken from where he now walked on Sensei's other side. “I didn't know it was this bad.”

“It is that bad.” Sensei grimly agreed. He nodded to the first stop on their tour. “Crimson Typhoon, China, one of the greatest. Assembled in Changzhou, raw titanium core, no alloys, fifty diesel engines per muscle strand, very precise fighter. She's piloted by the Wei Tang brothers, triplets, local lads. They successfully defended Hong Kong Port seven times. They use the Thundercloud formation.” They could see the Triplets now, playing three-way basketball as always, scraping around the single hoop, the ball darting so smoothly between all three brothers that it was almost a blur.

“Oh, yeah, triple-arm technique,” Becket commented, Sensei's narration obviously sparking something in his memory.

“Very effective,” Sensei agreed, as they left Crimson behind.

They were coming up on Scramble Ally, just as Cherno Alpha was coming up it, on the massive dolly that moved Jaegers into position for deployment. “That tank, last of the T-90's.” Sensei said fondly, waiting for the Jaeger to pass them. “Cherno Alpha, first generation Mark I, the heaviest, oldest Jaeger in the service. But make no mistake, Mr. Becket. It's a brutal war machine.”

Mako could see the pilots, still wearing their drivesuits, walking out in front of their Jaeger, surrounded by those members of their crew that had made the journey to Hong Kong with them. “And those two, Sasha and Alekis Kaidenosky.” Sensei said, referring to the pilots.

“Yeah, I've heard of them,” Becket said admiringly, his eyes on the approaching pair. “Perimeter patrol, Siberian Wall.” Mako had to admit the Kaidenoskys made an impressive pair, both of them tall, bleached blond, carrying their helmets and striding down the way as only two sublimely confidant Jaeger pilots could, Sasha's perfect red lipstick seemingly more ferocious than it should be in that setting.

Sensei agreed. “And their watch stayed unbreached for six years. Six _years_.” he emphasized, then led them away.

A dog's excited bark told them when they were entering Striker Eureka's territory. “Herc! Chuck!” Sensei called out ahead of them, giving the two pilots warning of their approach. “Gentlemen, welcome to Hong Kong.” he greeted. Hercules Hansen had already changed into civilian clothes, though his son was still in his drivesuit. Herc was holding his dog's leash, to Mako's delight.

“Max! Come here.” Mako called out excitedly, kneeling down on the floor to greet the bulldog. “Remember me?”

“Don't drool on Miss Mori,” Herc called out to his dog in his standard admonishment as he released the leash, allowing Max to run over to Mako for pets. “He sees a pretty girl, gets all wound up.” Mako preferred to believe that Max missed her, and who would blame the dog, after having Chuck Hansen for a master. Chuck was a good Jaeger pilot, Mako would give him that much, but his constant arrogance and disrespect to everyone he came in contact with, but most of all his own father, were hard for her to take, even if once she had admired him for it. But Mako's foolishness with him that had ended three years ago now, and she liked to believe that she was wiser for the experience. If only Sensei had allowed Mako to have a pet of her own, but his constant traveling around the world had precluded the luxury. Chuck, who until now had been based exclusively in Sydney had the stability to care for an animal, or so Sensei had explained to Mako when she had asked about why he was allowed a pet and she wasn't. 

“Raleigh, this is Hercules Hansen, an old friend from the Mark I glory days.” Sensei introduced.

“I know you mate, we rode together before,” Herc commented, reaching over to shake Becket's hand.

“We did, sir.” Becket said quietly. “Six years ago, my brother and I. It was a three Jaeger team drop.”

“That's right, Manilla.” Herc agreed. “I'm sorry about your brother.” he added softly.

“Thank you sir.” Despite his quiet acknowledgment, Becket's face made it clear that further sympathy was the last thing he needed.

“Hercules and his son Chuck'll be running point for you in Striker Eureka.” Sensei said, changing the subject, nodding up to the Jaeger towering over their heads. Giving Max a final scratch and standing up, Mako could see that her armaments were being reloaded, and the connections were being checked over. After the battle with Mutavore in the streets of Sydney, there hadn't been time for the usual post-battle refit before Striker had been shipped off to Hong Kong. They'd wait to load the bespoken bomb until just before Sensei's grand plan was due to begin, due to the fact that Striker's systems weren't hardened against long-term radiation exposure, and no one could tell when exactly it would take place. “Fastest Jaeger in the world. First and last of the Mark V's. Australia decommissioned it a _day_ before the Sydney attack.”

“Yeah, lucky we were still around,” Herc commented darkly.

“Yep,” Sensei agreed mildly, “And now it's running point for us.”

“Wait, running point on what?” Becket broke in. He glanced between Sensei and Herc, before focusing on the Marshal. “You haven't told me what I'm doing here yet.”

Sensei hesitated a moment, but evidently believed that Becket had a right to his curiosity. “We're going for the Breach, Mr. Becket.” he said shortly. “We're going to strap a 2,400 thermonuclear warhead to Striker's back. Detonate an equivalent of 1.2 million tons of TNT. And you, and two other Jaegers will be running defense with them.”

“I thought we were the Resistance,” Becket said sardonically. “Where'd you get something that big?”

Sensei raised an eyebrow at him. “See the Russians back there?” he asked, rhetorically. “They can get us anything.”

Dismissing Becket with a nod, “Herc, shall we?” Sensei asked his old friend, striding off.

“Good to have you back,” Herc told Becket quietly, before turning to follow his commander.

“Thank you sir.” Becket said again, watching them go.

Mako was disturbed by the thoughts roiling under Becket's expression and tried to head them off. “I'll show you to your Jaeger now.” she offered, already turning to lead Becket to the other hanger.

“Ms. Mori,” Becket put out a hand to stop her. When she turned back to him, he asked, “Will you give me a minute?” When she nodded, more to acknowledge his question than to grant permission, he turned and strode after the two men. “Marshal!” he called ahead of him, calling Sensei back.

Mako couldn't hear what happened when he followed after the Sensei, but she knew Becket's file. Sensei's plan, codenamed Operation Pitfall, would not be Gipsy Danger's first assault on the Breach, it wouldn't even be the second. Both previous attempts had failed miserably. Add that to Becket's impulsive nature, Mako felt certain that right now Becket was questioning Sensei on the wisdom of such an attack. She only hoped that he would do it in such a manner that he did not offend Sensei unduly and get himself scrubbed from the mission. In a moment, he was back, looking thoughtful. Mako wondered what Sensei had told him, but dismissed her curiosity as unimportant. The only thing that was important, just at this moment, was Gipsy.

~~~~~

Showing Becket through the passageway to one of the many observation galleries overlooking Hangar Two, where Gipsy Danger's restoration held pride of place, ducking flying sparks from the ongoing work with the ease of long practice, Mako held out one arm, pointing the rest of the way. “There she is,” she said simply, indicating the nearly-fully restored Jaeger to her pilot.

Mako would remember the next moment for the rest of her life. From the first moment Raleigh Becket beheld Gipsy Danger for the first time in nearly five years, since he'd left her broken and bleeding on a beach in Alaska, some hard core of – something, something Mako couldn't quite name, but it had been ever present in him since they'd met – melted right out of him, leaving him nearly boneless in its wake. “ _Oh_ ,” he sighed, moving smoothly forward as if drawn by hydraulics, as if he couldn't _not_ move, coming to rest his hands on the gantry railings. “Oh my god. Look at her.” he breathed. “Gipsy Danger. God, it's so beautiful.” he shook his head slightly at the sight, smiling despite himself. “She looks like new,” he told Mako, his first words not addressed to Gipsy since he'd seen her again.

“Better than new.” Mako told him, quiet pride filling her at the sight of all her hard work to get the Jaeger ready for combat again after being left to rot in Oblivion Bay. She'd made a few improvements as well, there being no one to tell her she couldn't. “She has a double-core nuclear reactor. She's one of a kind now.”

Becket turned his head to look at her, the first time he'd been able to tear his gaze away from his Jaeger. “She always was.”

Now it was Mako's turn to pull her gaze away, a feeling of recognition bouncing back and forth between them. He _got_ it, she understood, he understood what Gipsy meant to her, in a way Chuck – for all he'd been obsessed with Gipsy and her pilots as a boy – didn't. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have expected this: Sensei had told her pilots were protective of their Jaegers, that they were more than mere machines to them, and while she'd seem the truth of that for herself, the way Becket had never looked back after his discharge, that as far as they could trace his movements afterward he'd never once even attempted to see her at Oblivion Bay, she hadn't expected him to understand. Of course, as far as they knew, he had never tried to visit his brother's grave at the memorial cemetery in Hawaii either, and even now, no one would dare doubt that bond.

“How do you like your ride, Becket Boy?” a voice caroled from behind them. The fragile moment popped like a soap bubble, allowing others entrance into their private world. “Solid iron hull, no alloys, forty engine blocks per muscle strand, hyper-torque driver for every limb and a new fluid synapse system.” The newcomer grinned at Becket, happy to see him. “Come here.”

“Tendo,” Becket laughed, dropping his bags and catching Tendo Choi, Chief of LOCCENT operations in a bear hug. That's right, they'd been friends when Tendo had been stationed at the Anchorage Shatterdome, back when the Becket brothers had been pilots of Gipsy Danger and on top of the world. “It's good to see you,” he said eventually, pulling back from the embrace.

“Good to see you too, brother.” Tendo responded, clapping Becket on the back. Mako ducked her head to hide her smile. “It's just like old times.” But they weren't, were they.

~~~~~

“So what's your story?” Becket asked as Mako wound up the tour, tearing them both away from Gipsy to show Becket to his room. “Restoring old Jaeger's, showing has-been's like me around, that can't be it?” he said lightly as he tossed his kit bag on the single bunk, setting his backpack down next to it. “Are you a pilot?”

“No, not yet.” Mako admitted, hugging her tablet to her chest. “But I want to be one. More than anything.”

Becket turned around, a thick stack of photographs in his hands, a slow smile on his lips. “What's your simulator score?” he asked, with genuine interest in his voice, not amused condescension. She'd heard the latter often enough to know it when she heard it.

Mako hesitated, not wanting to brag, but his easy acceptance of her dream made her decide to be honest with him. “51 drops...51 kills.”

“Wow, that's amazing.” The smile grew warmer, though with a hint of confusion visible underneath. “And you're not one of the candidates tomorrow?”

Mako felt her smile die, her own confusion at the snub still grating at her, even though the snub was not Becket's in making. “I am not. The Marshall has his reasons.” was all she said on the matter.

“He always does, doesn't he,” Becket sighed. “Well, with 51 kills, I can't imagine what they could be.”

It should have meant nothing to Mako. Raleigh Becket was a stranger to her, someone she had known for a few hours at most. In fact, she had every reason to dislike him on principle, given the way he simply had to show up and was handed the results of all her hard labor without having earned such consideration in the least. Instead it warmed something inside her, that someone, even if it was a stranger, recognized her worth, and never for a moment doubted that she could be an asset in a Jaeger, despite her gender, small stature and her relative inexperience.

Uncomfortable with that thought, she changed the subject. “I hope you approve of my choices,” Mako said briskly to cover the butterflies churning in her gut. “I've studied your fighting techniques and strategy, even...Alaska.” she met his gaze fearlessly, letting him know without words just what she meant by the last word.

A small smile crooked the corner of Becket's mouth. “And what do you think?” he prompted.

Mako only hesitated a moment before plunging in. “I think you're unpredictable. You have a habit of deviating from standard combat techniques. You take risks that endanger yourself and your crew.” She paused for a moment, to lend her last statement more weight. “I don't think you are the right man for this mission.”

It was unforgivably blunt, but there was a time and place for proper respect, and a time to be bluntly honest, and Mako knew the difference between them. Not to mention, for some reason – maybe it was the way Becket hadn't laughed at her dream, the way he hadn't reacted to Dr. Geizsler's unintentional jibes about wanting to see kaiju up close, the way he'd answered her in Japanese on the helipad – but Mako somehow knew that at this point, Becket wanted to hear the truth, no matter how painful.

Becket's mouth had lost his grin. He sighed, looking slightly away. “Well, thank you for your honesty. You might be right.” he said, honest in his own turn. He met Mako's eyes again. “But one day, when you're a pilot, you'll see that in combat, you make decisions.” Mako wanted to roll her eyes – she could almost hear what would come next – “And you have to live with the consequences. That's what I'm trying to do.”

Mako blinked. That...hadn't been what she'd been expecting at all. Her eyes followed Becket's down, landing on a black-and-white shot of the two Becket Brothers on leave, grinning at the camera, arms thrown around each others shoulders. Becket noticed what she was looking at and flipped to another photo.

Unsure of what to do or say next, Mako excused herself and escaped to her own room across the corridor. Opening her door, she shucked her heavy outdoor coat, her mind already turning over all she still had to do. She had to notify the candidates of the fact that compatibility trials would be held at 0800 tomorrow in the Kwoon. There hadn't been time earlier, given how long it had taken Sensei to track Becket down. Assuming all went as planned, Drift Testing and Gipsy's shakedown demo would be held simultaneously at 1000. There were a million and one details she had to oversee before then and –

A presence pricked at her back, a sensation of 'not alone' twanging down her nerves. Unsettled, and not sure why, Mako turned around, and stared.

Visible through his room's open door, Raleigh Becket had obviously just exited his room's small head, wiping a damp cloth over his face, clearing away the grime that had caked it, completely unselfconscious of the fact that he was half-naked. Two things struck Mako almost immediately, the second thought hard on the heels of the first. The first thing she registered were the red lines curving into his skin, burned into the flesh when his drivesuit had overloaded in Anchorage, raking down his left arm and across his ribs in patterns reminiscent of claw marks. The second was a deep feminine appreciation for the fact that Becket had obviously not let himself go during his long exile. Either that, or construction work called for more muscles than she would have guessed.

He looked up, his eyes meeting hers across the corridor. Horrified, Mako realized she was staring and hurriedly slammed her door shut, but – unable to help herself – moved immediately to the peephole so she could continue watching. For his part, Becket seemed unashamed of his semi-nudity– and no man with abs like that had any reason to be ashamed whatsoever – but he did walk to his own door and close it. Firmly.

Deprived of her view, Mako sat back, more flustered than she would ever have admitted to anyone. What was _wrong_ with her, she wondered. Why was she reacting this way, and to _Becket_ of all people, the Deserter, the coward who ran away when the kaiju took his brother. But then she thought of his eyes, kind and sober, the way he'd accepted her assessment with more grace and maturity then she would have thought possible.

It occurred to Mako then that the Raleigh Becket who had piloted Gipsy Danger with his brother Yancy, who had left the PPDC four years ago, unable to cope with his loss, was not the same man living across the corridor from her. And what that meant, she had no idea.

~~~~~

The next morning, Mako found herself in LOCCENT, reporting the status of her repairs and the candidates. Her crews had worked through the night, finishing the final checks on Gipsy, getting her ready for the shakedown tests later. And...there was one more thing she wanted to bring up with Sensei, one last chance at her dream. Becket's easy acceptance of it the previous night had bolstered her courage, her determination to fight for what she wanted, even if it meant going against her mentor's wishes. “The candidates are ready, we will commence the trials immediately sir.” she said firmly, following Sensei as he strode purposefully through the organized chaos that resulted in loading the launching parameters for three new Jaegers into LOCCENT's operating system. While the Hong Kong Shatterdome had held thirty Jaegers at its peak, Cherno Alpha and Striker Eureka both required specialized equipment to properly interface with LOCCENT, and it all had to be bridged together with the existing tech so that Tendo Choi could track all four Jaegers simultaneously during Pitfall. Mako had made sure that Gipsy was compatible with Crimson Typhoon's existing launch system during her restoration.

“Good.” was Sensei's only response.

“But there is one thing – ” she tried, but Sensei cut her off.

“Mako,” Sensei said warningly, stopping and turning to face her. He knew what she wanted to talk about. “We have talked about this. We will not be talking about it again.” he raised an eyebrow at her in clear warning, and turned away.

Mako couldn't let that stop her. This was her last chance. “You promised me.” she accused. When he had adopted her, when she had entered the Academy, when he'd arranged for her to graduate as a tech and not as a pilot, despite the fact that her scores were well within the percentage needed to pass into the final phase. That promise had been what had kept her going, as Jaegers fell around the world, and new ones were not being built to replace them, when she had been assigned the Mark III restoration project, and now, at the moment of truth, he was backing out. Sensei had promised her a Jaeger, and she meant to collect. “I should be the one to pilot Gipsy with him.” No one else understood that Jaeger like she did, not even Becket.

“Mako,” Sensei soothed, which sent her temper soaring. A quick glance behind him sent Tendo to oversee another aspect of the installation before Sensei turned back to her. “Vengeance is like an open wound. You cannot take that level of emotion into the Drift.”

Then half the pilots she had known should never have been allowed into the Conn-Pod, Mako thought angrily. What about Becket, who had lost his brother, Chuck Hansen who had lost his mother, Herc Hansen who had lost his wife? What about Sensei himself, who alongside his copilot, had lost a sister and a lover respectively the day Luna Pentecost died fighting Trespasser in San Francisco? Likely the only person currently in the Shatterdome who had _not_ lost someone to the kaiju was Dr. Geizsler. “For my family, I _need_ –“ Mako began, desperate, only for Sensei to cut her off again.

“If we had more time.” He said it flatly, no possible argument in his tone. The conversation was over, leaving Mako to stare brokenly after him as he strode away. Taking her dreams with him.

~~~~~

The Kwoon trials did not go well.

Mako had assembled a group of five candidates for Becket to test with. Each had gone through extensive screening, their records analyzed and inspected with a fine toothed comb before they were exhaustively compared to Becket's own file. According to the scores on record, each and every one stood a better-than-average chance on Drifting with the former Ranger, according to the neurological, academic, behavioral, and physical results they had for Becket on file.

But it appeared that Becket's scores in the latter area, at least, were wildly out of date. Becket ended his first match inside of a single minute. The second lasted two. The third lasted a minute and a half. Becket was victorious each and every time. 

What was worse, even beyond the clearly evident non-compatibility of the failed candidates, was the fact that Becket didn't seem to be taking this seriously. Mako had watched all the matches with close attention, and she could see that, as fast as the matches had gone, they should have gone faster. Becket wasn't taking advantage of all the available openings his opponents left for him. Each match should have been ended by a good two moves earlier at least.

Becket seemed to notice her darkening mood because, instead of getting ready for his next bout when his third opponent left the mat, he stopped and addressed her directly. “Okay, what? You don't like them? I thought you selected them personally.”

“Excuse me?” Mako questioned, confused.

“Every time a match ends you make this little,” Becket scrunched his face, in what was obviously meant to be a mirror of one of her own disapproving looks, “gesture, like you're critical of their performance.”

Well, even if they had failed to match Becket in physical compatibility, that didn't stop him from being sensitive to what he perceived to be attacks on others. That was a good sign at least, even if his attitude on the mat was not. “It's not their performance, it's yours.” Mako informed him bluntly. She had learned last night that Becket preferred it when she spoke her mind. “Your gambit, you could have taken them all two moves earlier.” _At least_ , though she didn't say that part aloud. Sensei was standing right next to her after all, and there was a limit to the amount of disrespect she would allow herself to show in his presence.

Becket eyed her critically. “You think so.”

Mako felt her irritation at his obtuseness sharpen. “I know so.”

Becket chewed on that for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “Can we change this up?” he asked Sensei sharply. He pointed his bo toward Mako in a gesture of open challenge. “How 'bout we give her a shot?”

Mako felt anticipation thrill through her blood, just begging for the chance to do so. But before she could make a move in any direction, Sensei spoke up. “”No.” he told her firmly. To Becket, he said, “Stick to the cadet list we have, Ranger. Only candidates with Drift compatibility –“

Mako cut him off, wanting this too badly to give up now. “Which I have, Marshal.” she pleaded. She'd 'accidentally' included her own records in the batch sent to assess neurological compatibility with Becket, had gotten the results back with the rest of the prospective candidates. On paper, her neural scans matched up nearly perfectly.

Sensei only glanced at her. “Mako, this is not only about a neural connection. It's also about a physical compatibility...”

“What's the matter Marshall?” Becket taunted from his position on the mat. “Don't think your brightest can cut it in the ring with me?”

Mako leveled a Look at Sensei, asking him without words if he would let Becket get away with saying that. Sensei read the look as well as he always had, and took her tablet from her and tucked it under one arm. “Go.” was the only word he said.

Mako took her time collecting a weapon and removing her shoes, socks, and outer shirt, making sure her tags were tucked securely where they wouldn't get in her way. The movements allowed her to center herself, setting her folded shirt down at the edge of the mat and arraigning her boots just so. Then she strode forward to meet Becket's challenge.

“Remember, it's about compatibility.” Becket reminded her as they passed each other on the mat, the same way he'd done for each of his previous opponents. “It's a dialogue, not a fight, but I'm not going to dial down my moves.”

Was she supposed to feel grateful for that consideration? “Okay,” Mako said easily as they reached their destinations and turned to face each other once more. “Then neither will I.”

She stepped easily into the Challenger's kata, whipping her bo through the air in the proscribed pattern. Across the mat, Becket matched her with the Defender's slower, but powerfully precise strokes. They edged closer to each other, stopping just out of range of any attack, their eyes glued to each others faces. Waiting for that moment of tensing, of attack. Waiting, waiting, waiting... _There!_ Mako moved, stepping right into Becket's strike, fearlessly meeting his eyes and ignoring the painted wood hovering less than an inch from her forehead.

She'd surprised Becket, she could tell. But it wasn't going to shake him. “One, Zero.” he told her evenly, their score count.

After a beat to acknowledge the point, Mako attacked, batting aside Becket's weapon, before her own was hovering between his eyes. “One, one.” she corrected.

She backed off again, but not before she caught Becket's grin, there and gone in an eyeblink. Before she realized what happened, Becket had lunged forward again, scoring low off her left side. “2-1.” He said firmly. “Concentrate.”

A flurry of strikes and blocks later, Mako's bo was just barely touching his jaw. “2-2. Better watch it,” she informed him as she backed away. Both of them switched their grips around, edging away from each other. So far they'd just been testing each other, getting a feel for each others style and range. But that was about to change.

Mako scored the next point, after what felt like several minutes of going back and forth, strike and counter-strike, catching Becket's weapon with her own, and twisting hard, upsetting his balance and sending him to his knees, her bo hovering next to his throat. Becket met her eyes with his own half-lidded ones, an expression of hunger, respect, and anticipation clearly evident on his face. “3-2.” she told him a little breathlessly, getting ready again.

“Mori-san. More control.” Sensei rapped out from behind her. Evidently he had caught her slip, the flash of temper that had fueled that last strike. Mako spared an instant of attention to acknowledge the flush of shame the lapse had generated in her as Becket got back to his feet, before she put it from her mind.

Becket turned the tables on her after another endless moment of fighting, the flurry of blows moving nearly too fast to count. Seizing her shoulder with one hand, he tossed her over his hip, bringing his bo to within inches of her chin while she still lay sprawled where she'd fallen. _3-3._ He didn't give the score as she got to her feet. Both of them knew it, deep in their bones. Both of them knew the next point would decide the match. Mako lifted her chin in clear challenge as she settled into stance, saying without words that she intended that point be hers. Becket's – _Raleigh's_ – answering grin as he took his own stance told her just as clearly that he invited her to take her best shot.

Back and forth they danced across the mat, seeming to move as one unit, each strike blocked before it could be completed, each move countered before it could begin. Mako could feel the energy flowing between them, the give and take, the ebb and flow as Raleigh neatly hopped right over her low swipe, meant to take him out at the ankles, but she had his measure now. The next time she went down low, she raised her bo just a little bit higher, hooking it under his knee as he tried to hop it again and yanking it upward as she stood. Raleigh hit the mat on his back, his right leg tangled awkwardly in her hold.

“Enough!” Sensei called. Abruptly remembering that there were others in the room again, Mako released Raleigh's leg, and bowed, properly, to her superior. “I've seen what I need to see.”

“Me too.” Raleigh got to his feet. He placed a proprietary hand on the small of Mako's back. “She's my copilot.”

Mako jumped at the realization. She had completely forgotten just why they were holding compatibility trials in the first place, given that first the desire to show up the arrogant American who had talked down to her, then the, the...experience of the match itself had driven the goal of such contests right out of her head. Her eyes huge, she turned to stare at the steadfast Ranger who was looking back at her with such an expression of ...of rightness on his face. There was also a hint of wonder to his expression, of amazement that the universe had aligned in his favor again. They both knew the odds of finding a Drift-compatible pair, they expanded exponentially when the fact of finding a second person compatible with a given pilot was brought up. There was a reason her candidate pool had been so small, and it wasn't for lack of available recruits.

But just as her spirits soared, Sensei brought her crashing back down to earth. “I'm afraid that's not going to work.”

“Why not?” Raleigh was indignant.

“Because I said so, Mr. Becket.” Sensei was unmovable. “I've made my decision. Report to the Shatterdome in two hours, and find out who your copilot will be.” He turned and left, his decision made.

Confused, and more than a little hurt, Mako moved to collect her things, avoiding Raleigh's gaze as it automatically turned toward hers. She could hear the murmurings of the crowd that had gathered to watch the matches as it broke up, they had seen the same thing she had felt on the mat, the same thing Raleigh had recognized when he had pronounced them copilots, and they didn't understand why the Marshal was denying it. Mako didn't understand it herself, but Marshal Stacker Pentecost was more than her superior, more than her adoptive father: he was her _Sensei_ , and she would trust in his judgment, and respect his decisions.

She stepped away, too rattled to don her shirt and boots right where she was, leaving Raleigh abandoned on the mat behind her. Chuck Hansen abruptly loomed out of the disappearing crowd, his eyes fixed on Raleigh, abandoned on the mat. Mako changed course to avoid him, she couldn't deal with Chuck and his ego right then, couldn't deal with the sneering comments he would make – the ones directed at both Raleigh and at her self – that she could almost hear already.

~~~~~

Raleigh caught up to her in the corridor outside their rooms, fully dressed again as she did up her boots. “Mako.” he was almost like an overeager puppy, nearly panting with excitement. “What was all that about?” Raleigh asked, bewilderment clear in his voice. He kept coming, backing her up against the nearest door, never letting up for a moment. “I mean, I'm not crazy. You felt it, right?” he gestured at the space between the two of them. “We are Drift-compatible.” Wonder lit both his face and his voice right up, transforming both from how she had first experienced it.

“Thank you for standing up for me,” Mako said clearly, still more flustered by her experience on the mat with him than she wanted to admit, even to herself. “But...there is nothing to talk about.”

There really wasn't. Sensei had made his decision, and that was all that needed to be said on the matter. She turned around and let herself into her room. Or, tried to at least. For some reason, her key wasn't working...

“That's my room.” came the voice behind her, fond exasperation in its tone. Mako froze, embarrassment scalding her veins, horrified at her slip. A quick glance at the door she was trying to enter confirmed it. What had she been thinking?

She brushed past Raleigh, putting his expression – a disconcerting mix of hope, trust, and wonder – behind her as she opened her own door. “Excuse me,” she said repressively, hoping he would get the message.

But he didn't. “I mean, come on, I thought you wanted to be a pilot,” Raleigh – _Becket_ said forcefully, following her across the corridor. “Mako, this is worth fighting for.” He paused, then continued. “We don't have to just obey him.”

Mako turned around. This was something Becket clearly didn't understand, but it was something that he would need to learn, and learn well. “It's not obedience, Mr. Becket.” she said firmly. “It's respect.”

He didn't understand. She could see it in his face. But he nodded, accepting her answer as Mako let herself into her room once more. “Would you at least tell me what his problem is?” Raleigh asked her as she shut the door. She didn't answer, only engaged the lock. Once the door was closed, locking out the world, did she allow herself to sag against it, closing her eyes firmly shut as she tried to make sense of her reactions. She did not know this man. She had met him for the first time only yesterday. There was no reason for her to be so linked to his reactions, no reason for her to care what he thought.

She did not cry. She had no _reason_ to cry. Just because she had found someone to match her so completely in the Kwoon, just because she had had a chance at her dream, just because she had met someone who, if only for the duration of the match, had let her believe she could move past the loss of her parents, and had it all snatched away from her was no reason to cry.

Tears would not change the facts. They never had.

~~~~~

Mako remained in her room, following her retreat. Gipsy's restoration was complete, she had no further business in Hangar Two, where the section leaders were currently supervising cleanup. They knew their jobs, they did not need her anymore. And given that Sensei had already made his decision as to Raleigh's – _Becket's_ – copilot, she had no further duties in the Shatterdome. And it would kill something inside her, she knew, to watch someone else take what should have been her place in Gipsy's Conn-Pod. So she stayed in her room, switching out her outer shirt for a flirty gray cardigan decorated with knitted leaves that Chuck Hansen had given her, back when they'd still been involved. She'd kept it because she liked it, no matter what her current feelings toward the giver were.

But despite her resolve to stay in her room, she couldn't help reacting, moving toward her door when the twenty-minute warning for the start of Gipsy's neural test rang out over the public-address system. She watched through her peephole as Raleigh exited his room, and automatically climbed the few steps to her own door, his arm raised to knock.

But he hesitated, his face conflicted, just shy of committing to the action. Mako wondered what he was thinking, it was clear that his natural desire to have her for his copilot was warring with his understanding of her acceptance of Sensei's edict. Finally, he moved away without knocking.

Mako subsided, wondering why she felt so disappointed. She had made herself clear, she would not defy Sensei's decision. And, it appeared, Raleigh was respecting that. But, it had been...nice, to have someone automatically move to defend her while still making it clear that he respected her strength. There had been none of the condescension the younger Hansen would have used, if Chuck had ever been in Raleigh's position. And it appeared that the American pilot was respecting her still, allowing her to make her own decision as to what boundaries she would or would not cross. But still...she felt oddly disappointed, adrift, for no reason she could name.

Someone knocked on her door. Mako leaped to her feet, sure she knew who it was. Raleigh had come back, he was going to give one last shot at convincing her. Mako hurried to unlock her door, unsure of how she was going to respond, but excited anyway.

Only, it wasn't Raleigh who stood outside her door. Sensei stood there, immaculately dressed as always. He bowed slightly, a gesture of respect for the sanctity of her threshold. Mako automatically returned the bow, bending deeper in respect for him and his position of authority. “May I come in, Mako?” Sensei asked politely.

Mute with shock, Mako backed away, opening the door to allow him entrance, unsure of what had brought him here. Had he heard about Raleigh's outburst a few hours ago? If so, why was he talking to her about it, and why had he waited until now to bring it up?

But it appeared that he had other plans. From behind his back, Sensei brought forth an object, a child's red shoe wrapped in an embroidered _furoshiki_. Mako stared at it, uncomprehending. Normally it rested on his desk, a talisman and token of what he was fighting for, what he intended to protect. “Years ago, I made you a promise,” Sensei said gravely, offering Mako the shoe.

Shakily, Mako reached for it. As her fingers touched it, Sensei spoke again. “Go get ready _._ ”

She stared at him, uncertain her ears were working correctly. Had he just said... Sensei nodded, a soft smile touching his lips. Hugging the shoe to her chest, Mako bowed deeply again, this time in heartfelt gratitude. She would be a _pilot_ , more, she would get to pilot the beautiful Jaeger she had lost her heart to, the first time she'd seen her broken and abandoned in Oblivion Bay. She would strike her own blow for the safety of humanity, and her parents would be avenged.

After carefully placing the shoe and its wrapping next to the traditional tea ware she kept on a shelf, Mako changed back into her regular clothes and strode boldly from the room.

~~~~~

The technicians in the drivesuit room were pleased to see her. More than a few of them had been in the audience for the Kwoon compatibility trials, and at the conclusion of her match, had immediately began searching their stores for a drivesuit in her size, despite Sensei's pronouncement. Fortunately, Li Xiu Ying, one of Shaolin Rogue's pilots, had been nearly her size, with a similar body type. The drivesuit the Chinese pilot had been wearing on her final drop had been beyond salvaging, but her spare was ready for use, and needed only minimal adjustments to fit Mako. And as a bonus, she would match Raleigh.

Raleigh was waiting for her in Gipsy's Conn-Pod, already dressed in Li Qiang's coal-black drivesuit, which had been meticulously repaired and restored to peak condition after it had been recovered from the pile of scrap metal that had been Shaolin Rogue's Conn-Pod. The spare had been saved for his prospecive copilot, before Mako had been chosen, and anyone with eyes could tell she wouldn't fit. It had been the logical choice to recycle the Chinese pilot's drivesuit when the decision was made to recall Raleigh to active duty, given that both he and Raleigh had been of similar build and weight. There hadn't been the funds to build a new one from scratch and the drivesuit had been in relatively good condition when it had been recovered, unlike it's partner. And if Raleigh knew that the last pilot to wear that drivesuit had died, he showed no sign of it. He was on the radio with LOCCENT, his voice drifting out to Mako as she made her way to the Conn-Pod's entry hatch. “Configuring harness for test mode, waiting for second pilot.”

Well, how could she ignore an invitation like that? Mako could tell that Raleigh knew immediately when she set foot inside the Conn-Pod, for all he never turned his head in her direction. It wasn't surprising he heard her: the drivesuit's boots were made to lock into place in the motion rig, not for stealth. “I'm going to take this side if you don't mind,” Raleigh said easily, still not looking at her. “My left arm is still a little shot.”

Mako knew that his left arm, whether or not it had regained full capacity after Knifehead, was fully serviceable for combat. He'd proved as much in the Kwoon. But there was no need to call him on it. “Sure,” she said easily, taking her position on his left. As the junior pilot, this was her post either way. Of course, Raleigh's old position, back when the Becket brothers had been Gipsy's pilots, had been on the left as well, which was no doubt the reason why this was under discussion at all.

Raleigh looked over at her then, for the first time since she'd entered the Conn-Pod. And stared, some expression on his face that Mako didn't dare try to interpret. Surprise was there, relief, as well as something she shied away from naming, satisfaction and... “Aren't you going to say anything?” Mako found herself asking.

Raleigh shook himself, coming out of the small fugue he'd entered when he'd realized she was his new copilot. “No point.” he said easily, shaking his head. “In five minutes, you're going to be inside my head.”

Just like that, the bottom dropped out of Mako's stomach. She didn't know how she'd allowed herself to forget just what they were going to test here. The only times she'd done this had been in simulation, Drifting with a computer. She'd never gone through the final phase of pilot training, given that it primarily involved matching and getting used to a new Drift partner. This was for real, Drifting with an actual person, and one, moreover, who had survived trauma that no sane person would want first-hand access to. The fact that she had similar trauma in her own past did not even bear mentioning.

But even though they weren't connected via the Pons system yet, Raleigh seemed to know what she was thinking, and moved to reassure her. “You look good.” he said frankly, with a matter-of-fact nod to go with his brilliant smile.

Slowly, Mako's own smile grew to match his. They stayed like that for a long moment, before the techs entered the Conn-Pod and began the laborious process of getting the two of them strapped into the motion rig. She'd streamlined the process as much as she could, but it still took outside assistance to get fully strapped in. Not to mention the separate air hoses, bringing Oxygen directly into the helmets, a feature she'd designed with Pitfall, and the crushing depths of the Breach in mind. Gipsy would have to bring down all her air, concentrating it where it was needed the most would lessen the load she'd have to carry, making her far more maneuverable in combat on the bottom. There was no need to waste it filling the vast interior of the Conn-Pod.

Tendo Choi engaged the Drop, and Mako felt as if she'd left her stomach far behind, as the Conn-Pod plummeted forty feet straight down to land in its cradle atop Gipsy, had to close her eyes and remind herself that she'd wanted this, listening to Raleigh whoop with glee as it twisted and locked into place. Finally they were ready, Tendo had begun the countdown to engage neural handshake when Raleigh spoke again. “We're not in a simulator now, Mako,” he reminded her. “Remember, don't chase the RABIT. Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers. Memories. Just let 'em flow, don't latch on. Tune them out. Stay in the Drift. The Drift, is silence.”

Mako had learned all of this at the Academy, but it took on new weight hearing again now. She nodded, more for her own benefit, than her copilot's. And then they were one.

– _Two boys, Raleigh and his brother Yancy, age six and nine, making snow angels, chasing each other across the park, laughing in that innocent way of children everywhere – Mako in the family dojo, her father presenting her with her very own bokken for her seventh birthday, waving it around with glee – Mako in school, studying hard, applying herself in the way few of her fellow students were – Drawings and equations, childish scrawls of robots and monsters, before the world knew what monsters really looked like – Mako and her father, him picking her up after school when he ought to have been in the forge – Raleigh and his father, asking why they had to move again, he'd just made friends here, and they never even made fun of him, his father explaining in terms seven-year old Raleigh could understand, holding Raleigh close – Raleigh and Yancy, older, on 'patrol' in an abandoned Budapest factory, Yancy bolstering Raleigh's fading courage – A burning car, and Mako crying for her mother over and over again – Yancy screaming at Raleigh to listen to him – The Becket boys, now full-fledged Jaeger jockeys drinking in a bar, the two of them downing shots of dirt-cheap scotch that the manufacturer had somehow convinced the PPDC to endorse– Mako in the rain, under an umbrella, looking at – Raleigh himself, holding another umbrella and looking so unlike Mako had expected him – Mako and her parents, the two of them dressing Mako in her first kimono for her formal presentation at the local shrine – Mako in the sand garden, raking a new design among the stones – Raleigh, Yancy, and some friends from their latest school playing with marbles, Raleigh lying on his stomach for a better angle –_

And they were out. But not entirely. The Drift still hummed along between them, but fading into the background of their consciousness; present, but no longer the entirety of their focus. Mako gasped at the shocking immediacy of the experience. She'd read everything there was about the Drift, had talked to more pilots than she could count, had even unearthed Dr. Lightcap's classified accounts of what allowed the neural handshake to take place at all, but none of it had prepared her for actually experiencing it.

Mako felt Raleigh's confidence flow smoothly into her, like the ripples on the surface of a still pond, blown by the wind. The shocking intimacy of the Drift was not new to him, even if his partner was. Still, Mako would never have guessed that fact by the way Raleigh opened himself up to her without reservation, opening every door to his innermost self if she so much as glanced in its direction. The only sensation she felt from Raleigh that even hinted that he had met her only recently was the sense of sheer wonder radiating out from his core, shining like a candle set to burn in a window, promising warmth and safety inside.

Despite the love she felt for her adoptive father, Mako had never known such safety since her parents had died. Such unconditional acceptance. But no matter how much she simply wanted to bask in the warmth of Raleigh's regard, they had a job to do. Mako knew the sequence, the kata required to run all of Gipsy's physical checks, and even if it had been more than four years since Raleigh had run them himself, they were still embedded in his bones.

Raleigh turned his right hand, palm up, seeming to regard it as Mako moved with him. Right hemisphere: calibrated. Mako did the same with her left palm, as Raleigh moved with her. Left hemisphere: calibrated. Then they moved smoothly into a defensive stance.

Together, they moved through the sequence. Mako nudging Raleigh into the correct stance the few times when his memory faltered, their communication through the Drift so seamless that those outside watching the test never noticed Raleigh's slight fumbles because Mako corrected them before they could manifest. They finished the kata, with one final movement borrowed straight from the Becket brother's exploits, crashing one fist into the other in a challenging manner. That was the physical checks, done and done. Gipsy responding smoothly to their slightest movements. Mako felt a small glow of pride as her eyes met Raleigh's and –

– _felt the shock of rain on her face-shield, staring up in horror at the massive hole that had been ripped right through Gipsy's hull to her right. She looked to her left, seeing Raleigh's terrified face, looking impossibly young. She knew in her bones what was going to happen next, and she didn't want to die, was so fucking scared but tried to tamp it down because Raleigh would feel it_ _too_ – Raleigh, listen to me –

Blackness. Mako wasn't in Gipsy's Conn-Pod any more, she was walking down a pitch-black, deserted street, the only illumination to meet her eyes coming from the lights in her helmet. Instead of an Alaskan winter storm sluicing down on her, ash was gently sifting down around her as she slowly put one foot in front of the other.

She...was holding something in her hands. Slowly, as if the air around her had abruptly turned dense and heavy, Mako looked down, startled to see the bright red of a child's shoe in her hands. A familiar red shoe.

As if that realization were a trapdoor abruptly giving way beneath her, Mako plummeted into the depths of her mind, her nightmare swallowing her whole.

– _She walked down a deserted Tokyo street crying her eyes out, the street nearly unrecognizable compared to the teeming hordes that had coursed down it...how long ago? Mako-chan didn't know. She only knew there had been yelling, and screaming, people pushing, and she'd tried to stay with her parents, but had tripped and hit her head when the strap of one of her new red shoes had broken and she'd fallen over. She hadn't seen her parents since. Now her head ached something awful, and her unprotected foot hurt but she couldn't get her shoe back on, she needed help, she needed her parents, and –_

_She stopped dead, automatically looking skyward as three jets arched overhead, heading back the way she'd just come. Curious, Mako-chan turned back to look, which is when she saw it. Seemingly right behind her, so big that it only barely squeezed through the gap between the skyscrapers, though it seemed more than willing to make itself a path by destroying everything in its way; was a monster, a nightmare made flesh. The jets careened headlong into the nightmare, exploding into fiery ruin that didn't leave so much as a scratch._

_Mako-chan screamed and took off, running as fast as she could, the pain in her head and in her foot forgotten. And the monster, the kaiju,_ Onibaba _some distant voice in her mind named it, had seen her, was following her, chasing her down the street. She dodged into an ally, huddling behind the only cover she could find in the dead end space, a large dumpster. She curled up there and sobbed, unable to help herself._

Mako _. An unreal voice, at once familiar and unfamiliar spoke to her._ This is just a memory. None of this is real. _No, the voice was wrong, it was the other way around. The voice wasn't real, the kaiju_ was _, and she was so_ scared _. She shoved the voice away._

_Heavy footsteps just outside the mouth of the ally, each footfall making all the cars on the street outside jump. The kaiju roared, impossibly close. Mako-chan's sobs turned into gasping hiccups, too scared to cry anymore, petrified that the monster could hear her crying and track her that way._

_She could see it now, peering around the dumpster, framed by the ally's mouth. The only saving grace was that the opening was far too narrow to admit the kaiju, but it didn't seem to care. It lunged for her, as much of it that could fit into the cramped space of the ally, and Mako-chan screamed again, some unrecognizable instinct hurling her out from cover, throwing out her hands as if she could stop the monster's advance that way._ Mako! _The unreal voice screamed at her, panic clearly audible despite the fact that it was all in her imagination._ Mako, listen to me. This is just a memory. None if it is real. _It was saying the same things it had said earlier, but the urgency in it was doubled, or tripled._

_The kaiju got a claw in the ally, reaching for her, flattening the dumpsters she had been sheltering behind against the ally wall. She dropped her outstretched arm and backed away as far as she could go, too scared to scream anymore. A new sound reached her ears, audible even over the kaiju's roars. She looked up, seeing something massive pass overhead, moving swiftly through the narrow band of sky visible from where she stood._

_The kaiju saw it too. It turned, leaving her alone as it moved to engage whatever had just arrived. She could hear it roaring in fury, loud booms and crashes assaulting her ears as the two titans clashed. Mako-chan futilely clapped her hands over her ears to protect them while the unreal voice tried desperately to soothe her._

_It seemed to go on forever. But eventually, the noise ceased. After a while, Mako-chan ventured out, picking up her abandoned shoe as she did so, into the ruin that had once been a major city. She could see the kaiju's corpse, toxic kaiju blue coating it's surface. But the other titan, the Jaeger,_ Coyote Tango _, stood tall and proud. Even though she'd never seen it before in her life, it looked like safety, it looked like home, it looked like love and acceptance and bravery, and honor and –_

 _A hatch opened, and one of the pilots climbed out onto the massive metal head, pulling off his helmet and revealing a face the same creamy brown as the hot chocolate her mother would give her as a treat before the world had gone so crazy. He looked at her with so much sadness in his eyes, and Mako-chan wanted to let him know it was okay, now. The monster was dead. He had saved her. She broke out into the biggest grin she could manage, tears of fright still wet on her cheeks, letting him see that she was alright now._ –

Mako came back to herself abruptly, out of the Drift, seeing the interior of Gipsy's Conn-Pod, instead of the shattered remains of Tokyo's streets. The hull was intact, not shattered as it had been in Yancy's final memory. She was sitting down, the motion rig disengaged, as well as the spinal clamp that anchored the Drift. Raleigh's right arm supported her weight, as the rest of him curled around her side, telling her in breathless gasps that it was okay.

“You were there.” It was all she could manage as she allowed herself to sag further into his hold. She'd heard him in the Drift, but had been unable to react to his presence, helpless to do more than let the memory play out in it's entirety.

“Yeah, I was.” Raleigh admitted. “I saw it all. You were so brave, you didn't need my help after all.” Then his voice changed. “I'm so sorry Mako. I was the one who screwed things up for us, I was the one who dragged our nightmares up from their graves to drown us...” he let his voice drift away, holding her to him until the techs came to let them out of the Jaeger.

~~~~~

Thirty minutes after the failed test Mako found herself waiting at strict attention outside Sensei's office, while Raleigh paced nervously nearby. No one else waited with them. No one seemed to want to associate themselves with them anymore, not that Raleigh had been Mr. Popular since his arrival at the Shatterdome.

But even without the aura of disgrace that surrounded the two of them since their failed test, things were not peaceful in the corridor, despite the lack of people. “ _...she's a rookie, he's a has-been_ ,” Chuck Hansen was ranting from inside Sensei's office, his voice clearly audible even through the thick metal door. “ _I don't want them tainting_ my _bomb run!_ ”

It was of no surprise to Mako that Chuck found himself roughly ejected from the office shortly thereafter by his father, Sensei's level voice floating out after him, full of danger. “You need to watch your tone Mr. Hansen.”

Herc evidently agreed. “Hey, stay there,” he called after his son, the menace in his words more than enough to ensure that no matter how much Chuck normally rebelled against his father's authority, he would obey, at least for a moment. “Give me a moment.” Then he shut the door in Chuck's face.

Chuck turned, and immediately turned on the two of them waiting in the corridor, Raleigh having moved automatically to flank Mako in response to Chuck's evident threat. “You two are a goddamn disgrace,” he seethed stalking toward them. Mako could feel Raleigh returning Chuck's glare in equal measure, while she held herself like stone, and tried to pretend that Chuck didn't exist. It was something she had found herself doing a lot since they'd broken up.

Chuck switched his focus to Raleigh. “You're going to get us all killed, and here's the thing _Ra_ leigh,” he sneered, stretching out the first syllable of Raleigh's name mockingly, “I want to come back from this mission. Because, I quite like my life.” _You like the fame, and the glory, and if the mission succeeds, there won't be any more_ , Mako thought uncharitably, even if Chuck was right about how much they had messed up. “So why don't you,” and here he reached out and casually flicked Raleigh hard, and insultingly in the chest, “just do us all a favor and disappear? It's the only thing your good at.”

“Stop! Now!” Mako said sharply, feeling her temper rise. She hadn't seen all of Raleigh's nightmare in the Drift, just flashes, but the pain, fear, and helplessness drenching those memories had been more than enough to catapult her into a nightmare of her own. Chuck – who had no idea of exactly what demons plagued Raleigh, of exactly how much he had overcome to merely be present, here, in the Shatterdome, much less take a new copilot – had no right to be saying such things.

Raleigh didn't respond, verbally at least. He just leveled a flat look at the Australian pilot, while one hand came up to gently knock against Mako's shoulder, holding her back from Chuck's throat.

Chuck noticed Raleigh's gesture. “That's right, hold back your little girlfriend.” he sneered. Glancing meaningfully at Mako, he continued, “One of you bitches needs a leash.”

Mako saw _red_ , the surge of anger rising up so hard and fast that for a moment, just one moment, she couldn't breathe, much less react, the emotion swamping her reflexes.

Raleigh had no such compunctions. He moved, launching automatically into one swift uppercut, followed by a flurry of blows that knocked the other pilot on his behind, more out of surprise than anything else. Mako's hands started to form into fists, her feet already circling, not that Raleigh needed the support, but instinctively, she knew this was what copilots did, fought back-to-back against all comers. But scarcely had she started the motion, when an emotion not her own stopped her cold. _I've got this_ , a ghostly impression of Raleigh spoke into her mind, as if they were still engaged in the Drift. _Bastard has given me nothing but grief since I got here. I need to be the one to put him in his place._ She didn't have to like it, or even agree, but she subsided anyway. Someone needed to keep a cool head, and it looked like it would have to be her.

Out loud, standing over Chuck's defiant form on the floor, Raleigh said “Apologize to her.” His entire body language telegraphed clearly what would happen if Chuck refused to do so.

“Screw you.” Chuck snarled, and lunged. Sure enough, Raleigh slipped easily in and around the holes in Chuck's defense, the younger pilot too infuriated to remember his training. By luck or temper Chuck managed to land a few hits, but they might as well have been air for all the attention Raleigh payed them as he steadily backed Chuck into a corner, slamming him against the wall hard enough to dent the pipe carrying heated steam from the hangar bay to the other inhabited parts of the Shatterdome. Chuck groaned in pain.

“I said, apologize to her.” Raleigh said again, as Chuck massaged his arm, which had to be aching from the force of that last hit. Chuck didn't respond this time, too busy glaring. He lunged forward again, but Raleigh was ready, reaching past Chuck's guard to slap insultingly at his neck, that did more to momentarily distract Chuck from the fact that Raleigh had a hold on his wrist, pulling him off balance. With shock, Mako recognized her own moves, ones she herself had used against Chuck as Raleigh hooked an ankle over Chuck's arm, catching his foot under his knee as he smoothly brought the younger man to the floor, his captured wrist up in an arm bar. Raleigh must had learned that from the Drift.

“Hey, hey! _Enough!_ What's going on?” Herc, it seemed, had become wise to the fact that there was a brawl occurring just outside the Marshal's office and had come to break it up. “On your feet, the both of ya!”

Raleigh immediately pushed himself to his feet, stepping back, never taking his eyes off Chuck. Sensei exited his office then, and sighed heavily, disappointment evident in every line of his body. Even though she hadn't taken part in the fight, Mako felt approximately half an inch tall in the face of that expression. “Becket, Mori, into my office,” Sensei ordered.

Chuck, as hard-headed and _stupid_ as he'd ever been, wanted to continue the fight. “No, we aren't finished,” he snarled, trying to charge Raleigh again, as if that had ever worked.

Herc caught him before he could connect. “Hey, this is over!” he growled at his son. “You're a Ranger for chrissake, why don't you start acting like one?”

Raleigh, for his part, only offered Chuck a sneer of his own before he pointedly turned his back, following Mako into Sensei's office.

~~~~~

“I went out of phase first.” As soon as the door to his office had closed behind him, Raleigh had taken immediate and total responsibility for the disaster their test had been. “It was my mistake – ”

“No.” Sensei broke in. “It was my mistake.” He looked at them, something broken hiding behind his expression. “I should never have let you two in the same machine.”

“So what? You're grounding us?” Raleigh's voice was incredulous.

“Not you.” Sensei's voice was precise, each word selected for maximum impact, the shards flaying Mako's dreams to ribbons. His eyes flicked to her, the single motion making it crystal clear which of the two of them would no longer be allowed to pilot.

She knew what had to come next, but hearing the words spoken aloud would destroy all remnants of her self control. Slowly, shakily, Mako drew herself to her feet. “Permission to be dismissed, Sir.” she said, her voice shaking despite her best efforts to control it. Her eyes burned, frustration at having her dreams denied, just when she had been so close to realizing them, shame for messed up Raleigh's second chance at the Conn-Pod, humiliation for having screwed everything up so much when everything was riding on Pitfall's success, but she refused to let the tears fall. Not here. Not in public. Not with Raleigh and Sensei to witness. She fought to stabilize her expression, as she had been unable to do for her voice.

“Permission granted, Ms. Mori.” Sensei said softly, heavily, each word – no matter how gently spoken – striking her like daggers and wounding her to her core.

Mako fled the office, turning back only briefly when Raleigh called her name, but not stopping. He didn't follow her, as she half expected. While a small part of Mako knew that Raleigh had stayed behind to advocate for her, the rest of her, the same part of herself that was already viciously flagellating herself over her mistake, snarled vindictively that now that Raleigh knew what she was, what had happened to her, how it had shaped her, molded her and drove her to this day, he'd keep his distance.

Her feet traced the path back to her quarters by rote, her eyes too blinded by unshed tears to see properly. When she had reached her room, with the door firmly shut and locked, Mako allowed herself to collapse, falling across her bed, shoving a corner of her pillow into her mouth to stifle the sound of her sobs.

She wasn't just crying for herself, for the dreams that had shattered like glass when she'd reached out to touch them, she was crying for the little girl she'd been, so lost and alone, for the loss of her family, both the family that had perished in Onibaba's attack, and the family that had survived and, as one unit, turned their backs on the useless girl child who could never carry on the family legacy of traditional sword-making, who's only use to the family would ever be in an arranged marriage to a smith of acceptable lineage and skill, and she was too young for that. For Sensei, who had taken a chance on her with so much at stake, and she had let him down so catastrophically. And she cried for Raleigh, who had spent the last five years in caught in the grip of a loneliness so complete that Mako was only now just beginning to comprehend the extent of it.

Even after her parents died, she had had someone. Sensei had taken her in, and before her death six months ago, Aunt Tamsin had helped her with the few things Sensei could not provide, and there had always been techs and engineers who were ready to take her in and teach her what they knew of Jaeger mechanics and how the massive machines worked. There had been Herc, and for a time, his son Chuck. There had been all the pilots, at Shatterdomes all over the world as she followed her adoptive father in the course of his duties, a massive extended family that transcended blood relation, a bond of brotherhood that Mako had always stood on the sidelines of, able to bask in the ripples if not always able to partake.

But _Raleigh_... When Yancy died, Raleigh had nothing, and no one left. His mother had died of cancer when he was seventeen, his father and sister had vanished shortly afterward, and Raleigh had never quite managed to track either of them down in the years since. And there had been no Aunts or Uncles, no grandparents or cousins to go to, adopted or otherwise. After his discharge, he'd been cut off from even the intangible bonds of brotherhood that permeated Shatterdomes all over the world. Left to live, or die as best he may, with no one to care whatever the outcome was.

Mako had known all of this before. Before he'd arrived, she'd poured over his file so many times she could nearly recite it in her sleep. But she hadn't understood what it _meant_. Finding they were compatible, hell, finding _anyone_ compatible with him, must have been like a dream, a miracle, manna to his starved soul. Drifting again must have been like water from an oasis, in the parched desert of his loneliness. Or at least, it had been, until she had ruined everything.

Sensei had tried to tell here. Tried to warn her. She hadn't listened. And now the cost was coming home, but it wasn't her that would pay the balance. It was Raleigh.

~~~~~

Eventually, Mako's tears slowed, then stopped completely. She cleaned up, using the various tricks Aunt Tamsin had taught her to hide every last trace of her tears, before exiting her room. A glance at one of the standard clocks – not the War Clock – mounted on the wall told her it was time for Mess, even if she didn't feel all that hungry just then.

But after selecting her food, the first Mess she tried – Mess B – froze her out completely. No one spoke. Everyone stared at her, their gazes hostile, frightened. These were people she had nearly killed when she had activated Gipsy's Plasma Cannon in the midst of her RABIT. No wonder they didn't want her to sit with them. She took her tray and left, to try her luck at another location.

Mess C was no different, but with one addition. There, they weren't just staring at her. Raleigh stood alone in the middle of the crowded Mess, his tray just as sparsely laden as hers. Here, they stared primarily at him.

Their eyes met across the silent Mess, outcasts in a sea of humanity. No words were required as Mako silently led the way, out of the Mess, away from everyone else, to the one place in the Shatterdome where it was nearly guaranteed that there wouldn't be other people: the place where they'd first felt their connection, shaped by the third part of their bond: Gipsy.

They ate in silence, their eyes on their Jaeger. Eventually, when the meal trays had been set aside, Raleigh spoke, breaking the silence that had existed between them since Sensei had grounded her, but not him.

“I'm sorry, I should have warned you,” he said simply, again taking the responsibility for their failure solely onto himself, as he had done from the beginning. “First Drifts are rough, but you weren't just tapping into my memories, you were tapping into my brother's too.”

Raleigh sighed, his gaze miles away, and still somehow landing on her face. “When Yancy was taken we were still connected.” He gave her a broken smile, one that eloquently conveyed his pain, his heartbreak, and his guilt, shaking his head slightly, “I felt his fear, his pain, his helplessness, and then,” he paused, swallowing down the pain of the memory, “He was gone.”

“I felt it.” Mako whispered, unable to speak louder as if to do so would be to fracture the fragile moment between them. “I know.” She'd known the bare bones of it, even before the failed test, the word of Yancy Becket's fate had gone through Shatterdomes all around the world like a forest fire, the circumstances of his death common knowledge at the time. Not only that, but Mako had re-familiarized herself with all the facts of Gipsy's final drop when starting the restoration project. None of that academic knowledge had prepared her for feeling what Yancy had gone through in his final moments firsthand. But now, _now_ she understood the full horror of what had happened, the aching loneliness that came from having part of your soul ripped carelessly away, and knew just how much courage it had taken Raleigh to open himself up to the possibility of taking another copilot, of exposing someone unconnected with his trauma to that memory. And more than that, to the fear that it could happen again.

Raleigh huffed in quiet acknowledgment and added, “You know, you live in someone else's head for so long, the hardest part to deal with is the silence. To let someone else in, to really _connect_ , you have to trust them.” Mako studied his face carefully, unable to say a word, recognizing what this was costing him to verbalize all this. “And today the Drift was strong.”

One corner of his mouth turned up, turning into a smile that lit up his entire face. Mako found herself smiling back, recognizing what he wasn't saying, what he _couldn't_ say, not even to her, what that meant for them going forward. Whatever Sensei said, Raleigh Becket looked at her and saw someone he could trust, someone that he had no compunctions about opening up his head and sharing his innermost secrets with. Despite his loss, despite the trauma he'd undergone, he was willing to lay all of that aside, because he'd found it in himself to trust her, to truly open himself up to her, despite the fact she'd nearly ruined everything. She was his copilot, and he was hers, and nothing was going to separate them now. Even if Sensei, the Marshal, assigned Raleigh another copilot, there was no power on earth that could sever their connection. It took two to pilot a Jaeger, and no matter who Marshal Pentecost tried to shove into the Conn-Pod with him, Raleigh had made his choice clear: Mako.

A sound, muffled slightly by distance, jerked Mako's attention across the vast space to Gipsy. Workers were performing checks, making sure her systems hadn't suffered any damage from the way Mako had chased the RABIT. A crane had a hold of one section of Gipsy's breastplate, moving it away so that workers could access her core.

“Her heart,” Mako said softly, speaking to Raleigh. “When's the last time you saw it?”

“Not in a long time.” Raleigh said, setting in to stare contentedly at their Jaeger, at the burning heart that gave her strength. The silence settled back between them, but it was a comfortable silence now, no longer weighed down by the shadow of their failed Drift. They were Jaeger pilots, they didn't always need words to communicate.

~~~~~

Mako and Raleigh had just returned their meal trays to the Mess Hall, after finally managing to tear themselves away from Gipsy, when the alarm went off. Mako knew that sound, knew it in her bones, had responded to it more times than she could remember. Kaiju attack. It sounded...slightly off to her ears, an extra emphasis to some of the high notes, but she pushed it away. This was her first time responding to the alarm as a pilot, the experience was bound to be different.

It seemed as if everyone in the Shatterdome was headed to LOCCENT to learn what was going on. Raleigh pushed his way through the crowd, Mako slipping through in his wake, people grudgingly giving way when they saw who they were. They might be the disgraced “Danger Duo” as Tendo had christened them, but they were still pilots, even if Mako had been officially grounded. Finally, Raleigh broke through the front rank of rubberneckers, emerging from the crowd to stand with the three other pilot teams, ready and waiting for the briefing. Mako, standing to Raleigh's left, tried not to feel self-conscious of the fact that out of the four crews waiting for orders, she and Raleigh were the only pair not suited up and ready for action.

“The Breach was exposed at 2300 hours,” Tendo was saying firmly, his voice pitched to carry over the crowd. “We have two signatures, both Category IV's. Codenames: Otachi, Leatherback. They'll reach Hong Kong within the hour.”

“Evacuate the city. Shut down the bridges.” Sensei ordered. Standard procedure during an attack. Clearing civilians from the field of battle, so the Jaegers could have a free hand. “I want every single civilian in a refuge right now.” LOCCENT techs started speaking into their headsets, triggering the civilian evacuation, alerting all officials in position to assist what they were in for.

Sensei turned to his pilots. “Crimson Typhoon, Cherno Alpha, I want you to front line the harbor. Stay on the Miracle Mile. Striker, I want you to hang back, look after the coastline. We _cannot_ afford to lose you, so only engage as a final option.” he ordered, giving extra emphasis to his final instruction.

“Yes, Sir!” the Hansens barked in unison, so in sync that it was a clear contrast to their normal behavior, as if they were already in the Drift.

“You two,” Sensei eyed Mako and Raleigh as if he wasn't sure what they were doing there, as if they were out of place, but was too polite to say as much. “You stay put.” He clapped his hands once, making sure he had everyone's attention: “Let's go!” he barked out. The defense of Hong Kong was on.

Humiliation burned in Mako's breast at the deliberate snub, but she forced it down, not allowing one speck of the emotion to show on her face, or in her body language, the only exception being a quick glance at her partner, to see how he would react. Raleigh nodded once, sharply, accepting the implied rebuke, but stayed silent. Mako thought that Raleigh didn't trust himself to speak – she could feel her copilot's urge to be out there, to do what he'd been brought back to do as if it were a compulsion, a physical need – but he held himself back, his back poker straight, arms folded, planting himself where he stood and let the chaos of an active attack flow around him. This might have been Raleigh's first time witnessing a kaiju attack from LOCCENT, but he handled himself like a pro; keeping quiet and staying out of everyone's way, allowing Tendo and his crew to do their jobs without interference. Rather than tucking herself into an out-of-the-way corner the way she usually did, Mako followed her partner's example and planted herself by his side.

It seemed like hours, but it had to have been only minutes before all seven pilots were strapped into their Conn-Pods and neural handshakes initiated. The three Jaegers rolled out, Striker being trundled down Scramble Ally to the main doors, while Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon were airlifted out to the Miracle Mile. “ _LOCCENT, Striker's got the ball, and we're on the roll_.” Chuck Hansen radioed in once Striker had reached the open water, disdain for his protected position clearly audible in his voice.

Herc evidently felt that a more professional acknowledgment was in order. “ _LOCCENT, nearing positions and awaiting your orders_.”

“Remain on the Miracle Mile and engage at your discretion,” Sensei – no, he was Marshal Pentecost now, ordered the two forward Jaegers, every muscle in his body straining toward the display that marked the Jaeger positions relative to the kaiju signatures they were receiving and each other. “Guys, keep your eyes open. These Category IV's are the biggest we've ever seen in both size and weight.”

“ _Cherno Alpha reaching target zone,_ ” Sasha Kaidenosky's voice was cool, in control. “ _Disengaging transport._ ” Crimson Typhoon radioed in the same acknowledgment. All three Jaegers were now in play. Mako forced down the small voice in her head that said it should have been four, the only reason it wasn't was because of her, no matter what Raleigh said.

“ _Cherno Alpha in position, miracle mile_.” Sasha said again, as the counter in the display representing Cherno began to move. “ _Cherno Alpha holding the coastline. Beacon is on_.” The beacon was an emergency transponder that would allow LOCCENT to keep tabs on the Jaeger, even if the pilots were unable to respond. It could only be disengaged by a complete and total loss of power, such as when the Jaeger was taken offline back in the safety of the Shatterdome, or when it was destroyed. The PPDC had learned its lesson, after Gipsy Danger had spent over six hours stumbling around the Gulf of Alaska following the loss of one of her pilots. After Yancy's death, Raleigh had been in no shape to be calling in his position, and it had been up to civilians to find her shattered form. The beacons were now standard issue, and for three out of the four remaining Jaegers, they were automatically activated when the Jaeger was brought online. Cherno Alpha though, was old enough that her beacon had to be manually activated by her pilots.

Both forward Jaegers moved slowly, sweeping the waters of the harbor for any sign of the approaching kaiju. Either of them. Crimson Typhoon was the first to make contact, Otachi surging to the surface to knock the Chinese Jaeger end over end, according to the data transmitted to LOCCENT. The tri-armed Jaeger recovered swiftly, employing her famous Thundercloud Formation against the faster kaiju. Leatherback was still some minutes away from joining the engagement. If Crimson and Cherno finished Otachi quickly, they could take on Leatherback the way they were accustomed to dealing with kaiju, one at a time. Finally, Crimson hurled Otachi away, toward Cherno, who waded into the fight.

The Russian Jaeger slammed into Otachi, pounding it with her heavy fists and elbows again and again. Mako watched the data streaming in, interpreting it as she had learned to do so as a little girl, watching from her corner as Sensei supervised drop after drop when he'd been unable to find anyone to watch her during a kaiju attack, teaching herself how to read the flow of battle in power consumption reports, battle damage assessments, keywords spoken by not only the pilots, but the LOCCENT personnel as well, learning the jargon until it was as familiar a language as her own. As she watched, Cherno took a massive blow, knocking her back into the water.

“ _LOCCENT, Typhoon and Alpha are in trouble_.” Herc Hansen reported in, confirming Mako's assumptions as to the way the battle was going. “ _We're moving in_.”

Pentecost dashed to the Operational microphone, the dedicated channel to the Jaegers radio frequency. “You are to hold your ground.” he ordered, his voice steely. “Do _not_ engage. We need you to carry that bomb. Do you copy?” he demanded.

Cherno, recovered from her dunking, was moving back in to aid Crimson, who had engaged Otachi once more. But the kaiju seemed to know exactly where to strike this time, going straight for the Conn-Pod, which had less armor than the rest of the Jaeger. One hard strike to disorient the pilots inside, before its massive tail moved in for the kill, crushing the Conn-Pod like a discarded soda can. The three pilots never had a chance. Finally, it bodily twisted what remained of the Conn-Pod right off, leaving the massive weight of Crimson Typhoon's decapitated body to crash back into the harbor they had defended so many times. On the screen, the dot that represented Crimson Typhoon winked out.

“ _Screw this,_ ” Herc Hansen swore over the radio. “ _LOCCENT, we're going in now!_ ”

“Damn it,” Pentecost swore, slamming his fists down on the console and turning away, unable to simply stand and watch as Striker Eureka disobeyed orders, the way Gipsy Danger had done so long ago. Mako saw him flinching minutely away from the empty space to Raleigh's right, reminded by Mako's presence at Raleigh's left, that the only reason she stood there was because Yancy Becket was dead. Mako didn't have to look at her copilot to know that Raleigh's face was like stone.

Cherno Alpha advanced, clearly intending to avenge Crimson Typhoon's fall. But just before they reached Otachi, things started to go wrong again. “ _Cherno Alpha, we've been hit with some kind of acid!_ ” Sasha Kaidenosky's voice was tight with the fear and pain she had to be experiencing, but would never admit aloud. “ _Hull integrity has been compromised. We need backup immediately!_ ” On the screen, Mako could read how bad the damage was, knew the acid was eating through the shielding protecting Cherno's reactor.

“ _Just hold on Cherno!_ ” Herc Hansen called out to the beleaguered Jaeger, as Striker sprinted across the harbor to the rescue. Striker was fast, faster than any Jaeger in the service, but she had ten miles of open water to cross. She needed time to go to Cherno's aid. “ _We're on our way!_ ” Time they didn't have.

Because Leatherback was closer. While the Kaidenoskys were occupied with Otachi, struggling to defend themselves as the acid ate ever deeper, Leatherback pounced from behind, leaping into the air and hauling Cherno away, pounding her top like a baker forcing down stubborn dough, finally ripping off the conning tower that formed her head.

Striker Eureka took that moment to arrive on scene, going after Otachi, who evidently had designs of slipping away from the fight and heading right for the helpless city. Even with Cherno Alpha in dire straights, if Otachi got away, civilians _would_ die. That couldn't be allowed to happen. Not to mention that the Kaidenoskys would never forgive Striker's crew if they chose to rescue their fellow Rangers at the expense of innocent lives.

Meanwhile, Leatherback shoved Cherno down into the harbor, using its bulk to hold her under the waves. Mako remembered that Cherno's hull was compromised by Otachi's acid, and had to swallow down bile. This was no time to be sick. It was just...drowning was no way for a pair as decorated as the Kaidenoskys to go out. It wasn't _fair_. But fair had nothing to do with kaiju. It was almost a relief when Cherno's icon on the display abruptly went dark. “We just lost Cherno, sir.” Tendo Choi's voice was shaky, nearly disbelieving. But there was nothing to be done. Raleigh twitched, clearly wanting to be out there, but he held himself still. Mako herself was like stone.

It was all up to Striker. Landing first one blow, than another, she gripped Otachi by the scruff and raised the kaiju over her head, hurling it away from the city. Once they had some distance with which to work, Striker began to engage the missiles mounted in her chest, massive plates sliding back to expose the launchers, the weapon that had most recently finished off Mutavore, down in Sydney. But scarcely had they begun, when Leatherback revealed its secret weapon.

Striker's stats went dark without warning, and a wave of what looked like pale blue lighting washed over LOCCENT followed by almost immediately by a total shutdown of everything electronic in the control room. Tendo's holographic display vanished. The lights went out. Everything went dead.

“What's going on? What happened?” Dr. Gottileb asked, craning his neck around in bewilderment.

Tendo was frantically trying his dead equipment. “The blast, it jumbled all the Jaeger's electrical circuits.” he said hurriedly, trying to find some spark of power that had escaped the EMP, which is what it had to have been.

“They're adapting.” Dr. Gottileb said scathingly. “This isn't a defense mechanism, it's a _weapon!_ ” One specifically developed to take out Jaegers, and the Shatterdomes behind them. It appeared that the kaiju had moved on from simply overwhelming the Jaegers sent against them, to specifically targeting them. Mako felt a chill run down her spine at the thought. It _fit_ , oh how it fit. Otachi's tail, matched against Crimson Typhoon's third arm, the acid, to take care of Cherno Alpha's thick armor. And now this, an EMP to cripple the most advanced Jaeger humanity had ever built.

“Get me Striker,” Pentecost ordered, trying to regain control of the escalating situation.

“Nothing, sir.” Tendo responded, his voice jittery with panic. “The Mark V's digital, it's all fried.” One gesture took in the shuttered station that had once been a control room. “It'll take me two hours to reroute the auxiliary. All the Jaegers are digital!”

“Not all of them, Marshal,” Raleigh stepped forward, Mako at his back, instinctively supporting her copilot. “Gipsy's analog. Nuclear.” His gaze met Sensei's, forceful, but not challenging. _You know I'm right_ , Mako could almost hear Raleigh's words in her head, unspoken. _Let us go. Let us_ fight _. We can do this._ But for all that, it was still Sensei's decision. Still the Marshal's call.

The Marshal's eyes strayed briefly to Mako, before returning to Raleigh's set face. Her partner didn't flinch, just met that gaze with calm determination. _Waiting_.

Sensei blinked first. “Go.” Mako and Raleigh turned on their heels and sprinted for the door, moving as one mind. Every moment that passed was a moment that Otachi was using to get closer to the city, that Leatherback could be using to destroy Striker. Behind them they heard the Marshal raise his voice, giving orders. “I want Launch Operations back online _now_. Do whatever you have to do to make that happen. We're launching Gipsy. Get word to the drivesuit room, Scramble Ally: those pilots need to be suited up and launched as soon as they arrive. Someone find out if the Jumperhawk choppers are still in play, we'll need transport for Gipsy, and I want eyes on Striker – “

Mako didn't hear anymore, too focused on the pounding of air in her lungs, of Raleigh beside her, pacing her, modulating his stride so his longer legs matched her pace and he didn't pull out ahead of her. Ordinarily she would be annoyed, as if she _needed_ that consideration to keep up. But it would do no good for him to arrive at the drivesuit room before she did, all it would do was delay him, delay _them_. Better to arrive together.

For a wonder, the drivesuit technicians were expecting them. Mako briefly wondered how, but then remembered the incessant disaster drills Sensei had instituted upon assuming command of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, after the Shatterdome in Anchorage was shut down. She remembered filing several formal complaints when the periodic losses of power had slowed, and – on one memorable occasion – stopped Mako's work crews cold during her restoration of Gipsy. Apparently, the drills had paid off. All the absolutely essential equipment required to activate the circuitry suits, and lock the armor into place was functional, and by the time Mako and Raleigh walked out onto the gantry to Gipsy's Conn-Pod, Gipsy herself was warm and waiting for them. Not only that, but there was a flight of four Jumperhawks ready to fly Gipsy out to Striker's aid. Also, LOCCENT had recovered enough power to drop them into place and initiate the neural handshake, and they were off.

It seemed to take hours, even though Mako knew it was only minutes for Gipsy to be flown to Striker's rescue, even though she knew that some of that was the sheer physical control it took to be flown and not move a muscle that could destabilize the load distribution of the Jumperhawks. And they _were_ going to help Striker first, the Mark V currently being menaced by Leatherback. Even without Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon, Operation Pitfall was still a go – assuming of course, they could stop the Double-Event first. Otachi had too great a lead on them already, it had already reached Hong Kong. Pitfall, and the potential survival of the entire human race, meant more than one city. And Striker was needed for that. 

Finally in position, Raleigh and Mako simultaneously hit the controls to disengage the cables connecting them to the choppers. They dropped, a shorter fall than the one to attach Gipsy's Conn-Pod to her body, landing in the harbor with a massive splash. “All right, Mako. Get ready, this is for real.” Raleigh reminded her, speaking out loud to ground her in the present, in the Drift with him as they took their first stance. Mako wanted to be nervous, she'd only done this once before after all, and that had nearly ended in disaster. But Raleigh wouldn't let her be, his confidence in her abilities washing through her, swamping her fears.

Mako wouldn't say his confidence was a rock; no one used that analogy anymore, rock not seeming so solid after the whole world had seen both Jaegers and kaiju smashing formerly-solid stone to powder in battle after battle. His confidence in her was: as powerful as an ocean current, as steady as Gipsy under their feet, as inevitable as a wave crashing to shore. Mako drew in a breath, let it out. She would not let him down.

As the kaiju turned away from Striker to face them, Mako marked their first target: the glowing tendrils behind Leatherback's crest, that had to be where the kaiju had launched the EMP from. Despite what Raleigh had told the Marshal to allow them the chance, Gipsy couldn't take another EMP, even with the hardening required to shield delicate components from the radiation put out by the reactor at their core. A second dose, at point blank range, so soon after the first, _would_ cripple them. And that couldn't be allowed.

Raleigh agreed wordlessly, painting out their strategy in broad strokes: First, disable Leatherback's EMP weapon. Second, lure it away from Striker Eureka. Both of them knew that Gipsy was ultimately expendable in this fight, while Striker, with it's all important payload needed to collapse the Breach, was not. Third, take out the kaiju bastard. Fourth, do the same to Otachi.

Mako would have questioned the fact that he didn't go into more detail, but Raleigh answered before the thought was fully formed. _You don't plan out every last move ahead of time_ , he explained. _Kaiju will react in ways you're not expecting, almost every time. You go in with your game plan, and be open to the unexpected. That's how Yancy and I took down Yamarashi, when it got past Romeo Blue. We didn't plan ahead of time, we saw our opportunity and moved. And that's how Knifehead killed Yancy, it deliberately reacted like we expected it to, and we dropped our guard._

But there was no more time for chatter. Leatherback lunged for them, they dodged to the side and got behind it. Raleigh gripped its shoulder fin, while Mako took a solid handful of the EMP tendrils, and ripped most of them away, tossing the organ they were attached to clear across the harbor. That was step one: successful.

Leatherback turned, impossibly fast for something with its bulk, taking the slight opening as Gipsy turned back to it. The kaiju seized Gipsy around the middle, its grip firm enough to rock Gipsy right off her feet. Leatherback capitalized on the opportunity, turning just enough to toss them into the air.

They landed in the working part of Hong Kong Port, in a container yard, skidding to a stop on one massive, metal knee, surrounded by the tools of an active port. Raleigh lifted their head just enough to show them that Leatherback was headed right for them, leaving Striker behind. _Step two: successful,_ Raleigh quipped to Mako. _See? It's working._

 _Wonderful. Now what?_ Mako responded sarcastically, even as plans and possibilities cascaded through her mind, Raleigh's experience sifting, sorting, and refining them until they'd settled on a plan both of them could agree on.

“Come on! Let's do this, together!” Raleigh shouted as Gipsy stood, and ran to meet Leatherback's advance, leaping into the air and landing a solid punch on Leatherback's skull as they came down. As the kaiju reeled from the force of the blow, Mako gripped it's crest in a firm grip and Raleigh hit it again, and again, and again, swirling helicopters lighting the murky battleground with their spotlights. _Now them? They're the real brave ones_ , Raleigh told Mako, referring the chopper pilots who got in close to the kaiju, without any of the protection of a Jaeger, all so that Jaeger pilots could see what they were doing. Mako wordlessly agreed.

“Elbow Rocket!” Raleigh called out, cocking their arm back as he gave the verbal command to the AI. “Now!” Confirmation flashed on screen before them as the on-board AI activated the weapon. Mako was abruptly grateful that her restoration crew had included enough of Gipsy's old hands to be sure all her old decals were restored to peak condition, as they had existed before Knifehead. Decals that included a large anti-kaiju stamp – a similar design to the one Chuck Hansen branded his pilot jacket and drivesuit with to mark his kills – on the third finger of the right hand, the same hand destined for Leatherback's face.

 _That was Yancy's idea_ , Raleigh told her, laughing.

 _Why exactly do I not believe you?_ Mako questioned, her mental voice syrupy sweet.

 _That's my story and I'm sticking to it._ Raleigh responded as the burn kicked in and sent Gipsy's fist flying forward, impacting Leatherback's skull with all the force and power of a Boeing 747 clawing it's way into the sky. Mako had done the calculations, and knew the force of that punch was theoretically enough to literally knock small objects into orbit. _Really? That's cool. I didn't know that._ Raleigh told her as Leatherback was sent stumbling away. The kaiju was clearly hurt, definitely stunned, but not out of the fight just yet. They'd have to keep at it.

The kaiju snagged a crane, obviously meant for unloading cargo, and snapped it from its supports like kindling, using the remaining portion to bash Gipsy over the head once, twice. _I hate it when the kaiju try new things_ , Raleigh groused as they looked for options, his eyes latching on what they had all around them, Mako catching his idea, deliberately bringing to mind some of the myriad bar fights Raleigh had participated in during his 5-year exile. They turned with Leatherback's latest blow, grabbing up a handful of shipping containers in each hand, and turning back just in time to slam first one weighted fist, than the other into Leatherback, finally slamming the two handfuls of containers together into a smashing sandwiching blow, with the kaiju's skull providing the filling.

The containers burst apart, the components falling in a fiery shower of debris, furniture, and other assorted contents of the containers. As Leatherback roared in pain, they got behind it again, grabbing it from behind. Deliberately mirroring Leatherback's earlier move, where it had thrown Gipsy across the harbor and into the container yard, they lifted the kaiju off it's feet. “Hang on Mako,” Raleigh gritted out, feeling her strain to lift the monster through the Drift as they tossed it as far away from them as they could.

Leatherback wasn't going down without a fight, however. It roared again, and charged Gipsy, barreling into them. “Plasma cannon, now!” Raleigh called out, activating the weapon on his side, firing from point-blank range. Raleigh fired again and again, yelling “Empty the clip, empty the clip.” As if Mako had any thoughts about stopping. Leatherback's lunge was aimed at pushing Gipsy right off the pier, and while Gipsy could survive a dunking, what they couldn't survive was the moment of falling, in which Leatherback would be inside their guard and tearing them to pieces.

Raleigh kept firing, shooting one of Leatherback's massive arms off, but the kaiju was undeterred by the maiming. It kept coming, pain and what served the beast for adrenaline driving it on, pushing Gipsy right through an overpass, abandoned vehicles falling heedless around them like rain. But in the end, it was overcome. Leatherback died, just in time as Mako distantly registered the pressure as Gipsy's left heel pressed against one of the massive bollards used to tie up ships to the commercial dock.

Gipsy staggered to her feet, shoving the body away from her before turning and walking proudly past Leatherback's massive corpse. Mako allowed herself a deep breath of relief. That had been close, too close. Raleigh had one, maybe two shots left in his plasma cannon, and while she still had a full clip, but Mako doubted that she would have had the chance to fire before Leatherback was tearing them apart.

For a moment, everything was fine. Then the flash of memory arced up from the past to slap Raleigh across the face. Mako mentally tightened her hold on her copilot, not allowing him to slip out of alignment, not again.

But she knew what had triggered him. It was the flash of victory, the relief of having vanquished an opponent. It had been just after such a reaction that Knifehead had surged forward again, taking Yancy with it. “Wait,” Raleigh gasped breathlessly, adrenaline letdown and the force of memory taking their toll, “I think this guy's dead. But let's check for a pulse.”

“Okay,” Mako said simply as they swung back around. Even though it wasn't her natural impulse, she understood why Raleigh was being so verbal. It wasn't just for her benefit, part of it was habit. The Beckets, both of them, had been talkers, seemingly every thought spilling right out of their mouths, even though it wasn't always necessary due to the Drift. But it had it's place: taking in information audibly cemented its importance, made it easier to distinguish against the constant hum of memories and experiences that ebbed and flowed through the Drift. It made it easier to concentrate on the _now_ , as opposed to the past.

Of course, every Jaeger pair was different. The Hansens were another famously verbal pair, though Mako thought that as was mostly due to Chuck's ego searching for the only outlet available to it in the Drift. _Ooh, good one_ , Raleigh snickered as the left hand plasma cannon opened fire, striking Leatherback's fallen body with devastating accuracy. In contrast, the Wei Triplets had been nearly completely silent, only speaking aloud when communicating with LOCCENT, or Crimson Typhoon's AI, though which brother was actually speaking at a given time was anyone's guess. The Triplets voices, like their appearance, had been identical. Mako felt a wave of renewed anger at the way the Chinese Jaeger had been taken out, and channeled it right into Leatherback's corpse, watching with satisfaction as the repeated shots carved a vast crater in the massive abdomen, collapsing it. “No pulse.” was Raleigh's sardonic comment as they put up the plasma cannon. Mako only grinned at him in reply.

They turned away from Leatherback then, their attention caught by the glow of flames on the other side of the harbor, marking Otachi's rampage. Despite this being the point where countless other Jaeger teams would have gone home, flushed with victory, they weren't done. Not yet. They still had a job to do.

~~~~~

They found Otachi in the ruins of a Hong Kong street mere blocks from the Boneslum, its head down a hole it had carved underground. _What's it doing there?_ Raleigh wanted to know.

Mako thought back to the city maps she had memorized when the news of the move to the Hong Kong Shatterdome was announced. _There's a public shelter nearby,_ she told him, calling up one such map onto their main display, the shelter locations clearly marked. _It must be after the people there._ Then she dismissed it, refocusing their attention on Otachi. _You ready?_ she asked.

 _Always_. Raleigh's grin was all teeth. _I always wanted to try this. Yancy never let me push the envelop this far._

'This far' was the oil tanker Mako was holding by the stern, dragging it along behind them as they made their way carefully through the streets of Hong Kong. Almost as if the boat were a sword, or a bo. Despite all the training pilots received, no one had ever tried to attempt techniques used in the Kwoon in a Jaeger before, mostly due to the lack of appropriately sized implements to use as weapons, but Raleigh had always been one to improvise. He'd seen the boat resting at anchor, and had run the idea past Mako. She thought, that was part of what had made her give in, what had made her pick up the boat herself, was the fact that he'd been ready to let it go if she hadn't been game for it. _You're my copilot. I trust you_. Raleigh said seriously. _Not to mention, you know what Gipsy can handle better than I do these days._

But there was no more time for chatter. Swinging the boat up into position – thankful for the wide thoroughfare that made the maneuver possible, they switched their grip and used the boat to impact Otachi's face. A slight adjustment, and they were swinging again, in the reverse direction, bringing it down a third time from above.

Only Otachi was wise to their strategy now, and caught the boat with its tail before it could be hit a third time. Mako and Raleigh tried to hold on, but Otachi was too strong. The tail tore the boat right out of their grasp, spinning it away, the boat coming to rest at least seven blocks away, twenty stories above the streets, wedged between a pair of skyscrapers.

Neither of them had time to regret the loss of their improvised weapon, as Otachi landed a massive blow to Gipsy's solar plexus with its tail, knocking them down to the street. Gipsy landed on her back, skidding on the pavement, and it took a long moment for the Jaeger to get back to her feet. Otachi didn't hesitate, disappearing around a corner impossibly fast. And while Gipsy was solid, and Mako had made numerous improvements to her design, she wasn't as fast as Striker, not nearly fast enough to catch the kaiju. By the time Gipsy rounded the corner, Otachi was gone.

They could see its trail, a creature the size of Otachi simply could not move stealthily, the sheer size and weight of its footfalls leaving craters in its wake. That's not to say that Gipsy herself wasn't damaging the city as she walked, despite all the care Mako and Raleigh undertook to minimize their impact. Otachi was just too fast, it could lead them around in circles, and they'd never get close. They had to find out where it was headed, get in front of it if they wanted to stop it.

Gipsy turned down yet another wide avenue, stepping carefully over an overpass that had somehow escaped Otachi. There was still no sign of the kaiju. “I can't pinpoint it,” Raleigh exploded in frustration, speaking aloud to focus himself on the task at hand. “It's moving quick, keep your eyes open.”

 _Right_ , Mako responded in the Drift, turning her head to the side to access some of Gipsy's side and rear view cameras in hopes of spotting Otachi. Jaeger pilots weren't limited to seeing out of the Conn-Pod's main viewscreen, though it was their primary method of viewing the outside world. Using the link to Gipsy's systems, a pilot could immerse him or herself in the view from the various secondary cameras mounted at key points in a Jaeger's armor. There would have been no way to look down otherwise, given how top-heavy most of them had been. If, for example, Cherno Alpha had had to bend over to watch what was under the water, it would have had trouble reacting when a kaiju finally surfaced. It took a particular twist of will to summon those secondary sensors, and Raleigh had showed Mako how to do it when they'd picked up the boat as an improvised weapon. Mako had always learned fast.

“Choppers, do you have a visual? Over.” Raleigh triggered the radio, contacting the swarm of Jumperhawks that still hovered overhead, pacing them easily as they moved through Hong Kong's streets.

One by one, the choppers responded. None of them had line of sight on Otachi. And none of them were willing to risk going off alone in hopes of tracking the kaiju down. For a helicopter pilot, going off alone in the middle of a kaiju attack was the equivalent of signing death warrants for himself and his crew.

In the end, they didn't need to find Otachi. Otachi found them, erupting through a building to take them by surprise, tackling them into a nearby skyscraper with a roar. Recovering, Raleigh landed the first punch to Otachi's jaw, Mako the second. Their third punch missed the kaiju entirely, plunging through an office building and taking out a large section of one floor.

Otachi capitalized on the opening, grabbing Gipsy by her shoulders and hauling her away, shoving her around before throwing them through the same building in a fiery crash, never letting up for a second. “Hang on!” Raleigh gritted out, before they emerged on the other side, inertia causing them to flip completely over, Gipsy landing on the ground on her front.

Mako was scared. So was Raleigh. Thankfully Otachi was slowed by navigating the tunnel it had just bored with Gipsy's body, and they managed to get themselves to their feet quickly enough to avoid it's lunge.

Just in time. Halting it's advance just shy of clearing the rubble that had once been a building, Otachi's throat flexed, and a stream of bright blue liquid jetted out from its open mouth, eerily similar to the bio-luminescence all kaiju sported like markings. Mako blessed her engineers and Gipsy's designers along with five generations of their ancestors as they managed to dodge out of the way, narrowly avoiding being splashed by the undoubtedly corrosive liquid.

It struck the skyscraper right behind them instead, the surface immediately eaten away by the powerful acid spray. It was worse than she'd thought. Mako felt chilled looking at it, at the way the hole seemed to grow before their eyes, metal and glass liquifying and infecting untouched portions of the building, imagining what it could do to even Gipsy's reinforced armor. _This must be what crippled Cherno_ , she told Raleigh.

 _Yeah_ , he agreed, steely determination pulsing through the Drift as they swung back to Otachi, eying the dangling sack beneath the kaiju's mouth with predatory intent. That had to be the source of the acid. _That's our next priority._

Mako pulsed her agreement. They both knew they couldn't take a hit like that and survive. They darted in, Raleigh grabbing hold of Otachi's shoulder, too close for it to bite, while Mako went for the acid sack bobbing beneath the kaiju's throat. Or tried to anyway. Otachi's tail came whipping out of nowhere, wrapping around Mako's arm from behind, the claw on the end snapping at and menacing the Conn-Pod.

Raleigh wasn't daunted by their predicament. “I'll hold it!” he called out, surging forward in the machine-to-pilot connection and taking control of both arms. “Went the coolant on the left flank.” he ordered.

With a twist of will, Mako separated her motion control from Gipsy. Free, she reached for the control panel, going for a specific dial near the center of the board. “Venting coolant,” she acknowledged as she twisted the dial just enough to release the freezing liquid.

The coolant had been formulated to combat the extreme waste heat generated by Gipsy's reactor. Mako had never learned exactly what went into it, but she knew, as Raleigh did, that it froze instantly upon contact with air. She'd never been good enough at chemistry to attempt to guess at how Gipsy's designers had managed to keep it as a gassy liquid while inside Gipsy's systems. It did the job, that was all that mattered, as it did so now, coating Otachi's limb, freezing as it did so, the tail's thrashing growing slower and slower until the chill of the coolant froze it completely. As soon as it had done so, Mako twisted the dial back to it's previous position, closing the valve as Raleigh shrugged hard, shattering the frozen flesh into chunks.

Mako instantly reengaged as they pressed their advantage while Otachi roared with pain. She gripped one of Otachi's horns, while Raleigh went for the acid sack itself. Slowly, careful not to spill any acid on themselves, he ripped it away, dropping it as soon as he dared. Otachi tried to spray again, but without the sack, only small dribbles of acid came up, none traveling past Otachi's own mouth. _Did your mom ever wash out your mouth with soap?_ Raleigh asked Mako, relish at Otachi's predicament clear in the Drift around them.

He knew the answer, but Mako responded anyway. _No. Maybe it is an American thing._

 _Or maybe it's due to the fact that Yancy and I were terrible about not picking up every bad word hurled at us in the schoolyard like it was candy._ Raleigh was totally unapologetic about that fact. _I think I can still curse in at least eight different languages._

 _I would appreciate it if you did not._ Sensei's opinions regarding foul language had been strict, and even exposure to Chuck at a young age hadn't kept Mako from following her mentor's example. There wasn't time for more reflection as Otachi recovered enough to knock Gipsy first against a nearby skyscraper, then to the ground, crouching atop her torso and digging in with its rear claws. Mako could feel the feedback in her own body, the circuitry undersuit to the drivesuit armor transmitting the sensation. Raleigh felt it too, she could feel it in the Drift, along with recalled agony of having Knifehead tear Gipsy slowly apart in Alaska.

Helping her partner shove the force of that memory away once more, Mako nearly didn't catch Otachi's surprise. As if the tail, and the acid weren't enough, _wings_ popped out along Otachi's forearms. It's rear claws still clutching Gipsy tightly enough so they couldn't break free, it rose into the air, carrying Gipsy with it. Higher and higher it flew, dropping down once, twice to smash them against the roof of nearby skyscrapers before rising again, up and up, and _up_ –

They were above the clouds now, but were in no condition to appreciate the moonlit view. Mako could feel Raleigh frantically running diagnostics, reaching for weapons that weren't responding while Gipsy weakly clawed at her captor. Both plasma cannons were shot, key relays taken out by Otachi's perch on top of them before takeoff, even if they had the ammo. The rocket punch was used up, vented on Leatherback's skull. And Otachi was still climbing, higher and higher with every beat of its wings.

The AI reported that they were leaving the atmosphere. “Temperature's dropping!” Raleigh called out to Mako, “We're losing Oxygen. Both plasma cannons are shot.” He met Mako's eyes, despair staining the Drift like a toxic cloud. “We're out of options, Mako.”

But they weren't. “No, there's still something left.” Mako told him, reaching for the control panel. She toggled the weapon she needed, their ace in the hole.

So far, they'd only used the weapons Raleigh was familiar with, that had been a part of Gipsy since she had been launched the first time, along with various improvised implements. But they hadn't had time to run through a complete rundown of Gipsy's weapons systems during the failed test before Mako had chased the RABIT. There was one weapon that Mako had added during the restoration that they hadn't tried, that she had never thought to use before this due to its disadvantages in a civilian environment. Unlike the vast majority of Jaeger armaments, this weapon had no way of containing the spread of kaiju blue. She toggled the Chain Sword, feeling the jerk up her entire arm as the weapon deployed from Gipsy's wrist, then solidified, sections locking into place.

Raleigh's eyes were wide as he read her plan, wonder at her brilliance and innovation permeating his every thought. He's never guessed that this modification existed, Gipsy responding just as smoothly and fluidly as she had when Yancy had been his copilot without the slightest hint of drag. And Mako may have been following his lead as to choices of weaponry, but she was an equal part of Gipsy Danger's piloting team. It was time for her to take the forward role.

“For my family!” Mako cried, knowing that Raleigh would understand that she didn't just mean the family she had lost to Onibaba, but the family she had gained, and lost again, bit by bit, as Jaegers fell and Shatterdomes were dismantled all over the world. And she meant the family that had stayed with her until the last, the Kaidenoskys, the Wei Tang Triplets, the Hansens, Sensei, Raleigh himself – she counted them all as her family, and thus dedicated this stroke to them.

She swung their arm around, in a textbook _kesagiri_ , Raleigh moving with her, aiding her, reading the form from her reflexes. The sword severed Otachi's head along with it's wing as the kaiju screeched in it's death throws, claws retracting in biological reflex, freeing them. The only problem with that was, they were currently over 50,000 feet up.

They plummeted.

~~~~~

Raleigh rolled them over, arms and legs spread to slow their descent as much as possible. _Skydiving_ , he told Mako tersely at her confusion at the pose. _Yancy always wanted to go, we read up on all the stuff you were supposed to do, but we never had the opportunity before Mom died. After, there wasn't the time or the money. Once we joined the Academy, regs had a lot to say about potential pilots killing themselves in hairbrained stunts._ He paused. _I don't know if it will work, we don't exactly have a parachute here, but anything to slow us down has to be good, doesn't it?_

Mako wordlessly agreed. They were falling faster and faster now, Gipsy's hull heating up from the friction of reentry. They going too fast, no matter what Raleigh did to slow their descent. If they didn't find some way to slow down, Gipsy would break apart when she impacted the ground.

“ _Gipsy, listen to me_.” Sensei called over the radio. Mako wondered if that meant that LOCCENT was operational again, or if the engineers had found another way for the Marshal to contact them. It didn't really matter which option it was. “ _Loosen all shock absorbers, use your gyroscope as balance and ball up. It's your only chance!_ ”

Raleigh cast an anguished look over at Mako, Mako returning it in full. _I don't have any better ideas_ , Raleigh told her. _You ready?_

 _Let's do this._ Mako forced confidence she didn't feel into her mental tone, knew Raleigh could feel how hollow it was as they worked in unison to follow the Marshal's instructions. But it wasn't enough. _We're still coming in too fast!_ Mako realized, her heart in her throat. _Maybe if we vent our fuel, we can counteract some of our momentum!_

 _Can't hurt._ Raleigh agreed. “Fuel purge, now!” he called out, as he hit the correct control on his board. Mako felt the jolt as the fuel punched out of Gipsy's core like a punch to her solar plexus, the opposing force doing more than anything else to slow Gipsy's fall. They were close enough that they could pick out details on the ground now, and Raleigh aimed their descent for a large sports arena, figuring it for a place large enough to give Gipsy a clear landing area, and, thanks to the time of night and the recent Double Event, deserted enough so they wouldn't have to worry about bystanders. Mako wasn't sure how he was able to aim their descent, but Raleigh couldn't spare the concentration to show her.

“We're coming in too fast!” Raleigh was screaming. “We're coming in too fast, brace for it Mako!”

Gipsy was vertical again, coming in with her feet first. They landed hard, slamming into the ground, using all the tricks pilots were taught to manage varying types of impact from air drops, to Conn-Pod deployments to kaiju assaults; Raleigh bringing in some tricks Mako wouldn't have considered from working on the Wall. She never questioned them, was ready to try anything if it would help them survive. Dirt from the arena floor shot into the air as they slammed into the ground at unbelievable speed, kicked up by the shock of impact, spread by the massive shockwave as Gipsy slammed down onto her knees, her arms shooting forward to break their fall further. In her bones, Mako could feel the Jaeger shuddering, shaking from the strain, but the loosened shock absorbers had done their job, holding her together when she should have shaken apart.

Gipsy was bent forward, her head down, almost as if she were a child prostrate before her father. Mako couldn't see, Gipsy's cameras and forward viewscreen blocked by dirt. The shock of impact still reverberating through her, Mako sensed, more than she felt Raleigh take control, levering Gipsy slowly to her feet, standing tall above the rapidly settling dust. “Mako, talk to me,” Raleigh gasped out, his worry an almost physical ache in her bones. “Mako, you okay?”

Mako didn't have to look to know what expression would be on her copilot's face. “Yeah, she gasped out, turning her head to meet his eyes with her own. “You?” she asked. She couldn't feel any injury, knew her own body was intact, but adrenaline could be blocking the transmission of pain through the Drift.

Raleigh collapsed into laughter, his relief and mirth spreading through the Drift in concentric rings, engulfing and feeding off her own reactions. Mako found herself laughing as well, helplessly, as one by one the spotlights from the surrounding helicopters found them, until they were haloed, triumphantly, from all directions.

They had _done_ it. Done what no other pilot pairing had done, ever, taken out two different kaiju in one sortie, with Gipsy still largely intact and combat-worthy to boot. _We sure showed them how it's done_ , Raleigh gloated to Mako, getting control of himself. _That's_ seven _for Gipsy. We'll catch Striker's record yet_.

Mako's breath caught, her laughter dying. _Did you mean that?_ she asked, awed. Raleigh including her for Gipsy's total kaiju kills, even the ones he had shared with Yancy, and the one he had accomplished solo, melted something inside her, leaving her... she wasn't sure how it felt. But the warm glow she felt could not be denied.

The only other experience of a re-made piloting team she knew of, Herc Hansen going from Drifting with his brother Scott to Drifting with his son, hadn't included absorbing all previous victories into the new tally. Of course, Herc's previous victories had been in Lucky Seven, not Striker Eureka, which could account for the discrepancy. Or it could be due to the mysterious incident Herc had witnessed in the Drift, the one that had resulted in Scott Hansen being booted – mysteriously and in disgrace – from the PPDC, and Herc wanting to shield Chuck from his uncle's influence as much as possible. Not that Chuck appeared to appreciate his father's protectiveness.

 _Of course I did._ Raleigh returned, his curiosity at her wonder adding a note of puzzlement to his reassurance. _You're a part of Gipsy now, have been since you started restoring her. Of course you deserve to share in her victories. Yancy would agree without hesitation if he were here, and had simply been sidelined._

Before Mako had a chance to properly absorb that, the radio crackled. “ _Team Gipsy Danger, we'd be honored to give you a ride back to base_.” the crew of one of the nearby choppers informed them. “ _We'll need that Jaeger brought in ASAP to get her back in tip top shape, but it'll take a bit to get the transport cables hooked up. No reason why you have to stay put when you two could be receiving a hero's welcome back at the 'dome_.”

As always, Raleigh looked to Mako for her input. _I'm game. What about you?_ he asked.

Mako hesitated for a second, thinking about how the two of them had been treated, shoved to the side and disregarded. It would be...pleasant, she decided, to see everyone, including Chuck, eat their words. And more than that, they'd lost a lot this time. People deserved to celebrate their successes, no matter how hard-won. _Let's do it_ , she decided.

“This is Gipsy Danger,” Raleigh transmitted back to the chopper that had offered them a ride. “Thanks for the offer, and we would be happy to accept. Disconnecting, and powering down in ten...nine...eight...” he counted down as he and Mako ran down the checklist to shut Gipsy down, setting the safeties for all weapon systems – no matter their functionality – and dialing down the reactor. It never truly died, that would make response times unacceptably slow, but it was dialed down from combat readiness once the kaiju was dead.“...three...two...one. Shutting down now. See you topside in five.”

The Drift fell away from them, a controlled shutdown this time, but still leaving Mako gasping to have her head to herself again. She disconnected from the motion harness, releasing clamps, and stepping off the platform that allowed Gipsy to mirror her movements. Beside her, Raleigh was doing the same, pulling off his helmet and shaking his head, exhilarated. “Ready to face the music?” he asked, turning to her with a smile as she pulled off her own helmet.

“Sure.” Mako agreed, following him up to the escape hatch, helmet in the crook of one arm. Sure enough, one of the helicopters was hovering just above Gipsy's skull, a boarding ladder dangling down to them. The rest of the choppers were in formation around Gipsy's shoulders, but none of them had dropped lines to start the process of getting the triumphant Jaeger ready for transport. With a start, Mako realized that they were waiting for her, for _them_ , a salute to their efforts against Leatherback and Otachi.

Raleigh nudged her shoulder with his own. “Wave,” he cued her with a crooked smile, raising his own arm in a wave that acknowledged the waiting choppers. Flushing lightly, she knew what was expected, Mako lifted her arm, following her copilot's example and waved slowly, turning slightly to make sure she acknowledged each chopper's salute. Then, and only then, did they climb up the ladder to the helicopter waiting for them, to take them back to the Shatterdome.

~~~~~

If Mako had thought she knew what to expect, as a Jaeger pilot returning from a successful sortie, she was gravely mistaken. For one thing, it began as soon as the two of them climbed aboard the chopper – cheers, shouted congratulations, back-slaps, handshakes and the like – and continued all the way back to the Shatterdome, where it seemed that every on and off-duty MP and Chopper pilot was waiting for them on the helipad and followed them down to Hangar One, where – and Mako didn't think she was exaggerating here, – the entire rest of the Shatterdome's population was waiting for them, every last one of them clapping, cheering, and screaming for joy.

It was a heady sensation, one that seemed to take even Raleigh, veteran though he was, aback by the sheer intensity of the reaction. That made Mako feel a bit better – she wasn't conflating the scale of this reaction because she was a rookie returning from her first combat drop. Which this _was_ , she realized with a jolt.

Herc Hansen shoved his way through the crowd as it subsided, at least somewhat. After being evacuated from his shuttered Jaeger, after Gipsy had lured Leatherback away, he'd had time to change out of his drivesuit and back into civilian clothes, and clearly he'd been hurt before Gipsy could come to Striker's rescue, because his right arm was currently caught in a sling. He gave Mako a respectful nod, one Ranger to another, shaking first her hand, than Raleigh's. “My kid'd never admit it,” he told Raleigh, “But he's grateful. We both are.”

Raleigh nodded to Herc, accepting the older pilot's gratitude gracefully, before his gaze drifted over Herc's shoulder and into the crowd. Mako followed her copilot's gaze and found Chuck, nearly lost in the crush surrounding them, conspicuous by the fact that he was the only person not applauding and cheering his lungs out. He nodded, stiffly, when he noticed Raleigh's gaze.

Raleigh, for his part, merely lifted his chin and smirked at the other pilot. _You could be more gracious_ , Mako told him, through the fading connection that still existed between them.

 _I'll be gracious when Hansen Junior apologizes for what he said to you. To both of us. I'll respect his abilities in the Conn-Pod, that doesn't mean I have to respect him as a person_. Raleigh responded, not willing to give an inch. Mako mentally rolled her eyes at her copilot's response. Chuck and Raleigh were so similar sometimes that it was no wonder that they were rubbing each other the wrong way.

But there wasn't time to consider that further, as a path began to open up before them, and Marshal Pentecost, Sensei, was walking down it. “Mr. Becket! Ms. Mori!” Sensei called out ahead of them as he made his way to where they waited.

“In all of my years fighting, I've _never_ , seen anything like that.” Sensei stopped in front of Raleigh, staring intently at him as if abruptly reevaluating his opinion of the younger man. Then his gaze traveled to Mako. “Well done. Proud of you.” he told her softly, and Mako knew that he wasn't simply speaking as her commander right now, but as her father. The praise, the acknowledgment, all she had ever wanted from this man, made her glow with pride, dropping her gaze and smiling slightly to herself.

“Proud of us all,” Sensei continued, raising his voice to encompass the onlookers. “But, harsh as it sounds, there is no time to celebrate.” An uneasy ripple went through the crowd at that. Celebrations following triumphs such as this one were expected, rejoicing in the skills of the pilots involved, and at the destruction of their enemies. But Sensei wasn't done. Making his way through the crush of people, Mako, Raleigh, and Herc close on his heels, he continued, “We lost two crews.”

Mako could see the joy visibly fade from the faces of those around her, as they recalled what they'd lost. Crimson Typhoon. Cherno Alpha. Both Jaegers and their pilots couldn't be spared, but they'd have to find a way to manage without them. “No time to grieve.” Sensei went on, dashing the expectation of a memorial service that was visible on more than one face that Mako could see.

Sensei turned toward Mako, looking past her, to the War Clock on the massive doors she had just entered through so triumphantly. “Reset that Clock!” he ordered.

As everyone watched, the massive War Clock, the clock that had been steadily counting out the mere days, hours, _minutes_ since the last attack, shudder back to Zero all around. Erasing the progress, the meager bit of safety they had managed to attain, as if it had never been.

Unaccountably, Mako felt a wave of despair at the sight, though she sternly controlled her expression. The massive celebration on her return had blocked her understanding for a moment, of what a kaiju attack would mean. Then she forced herself to get her head back on straight. Just because this was her first combat drop did not excuse her for forgetting policy, policy that Sensei had set out long before now, before the UN had decided to cut funding to the Jaeger program, when it had become clear that kaiju were coming through the Breach at shorter and shorter intervals. It had nothing to do with her, just with the kaiju. She had to accept that.

But that didn't keep her from freezing at the slight bit of red coming from Sensei's nostril as he looked at her once more, the barest beginning of a bleed. Knowing he wouldn't want anyone to know how fragile his health was, Mako raised her hand to wipe under her own nose, knowing Sensei would understand what she was trying to say.

He did. Sensei mirrored her gesture, and seeing the red on his hands, the red that he couldn't let his people see; he retreated at once, unceremoniously striding away. All around her Mako could hear people talking, but she couldn't make out their words. As if drawn by a rope, Mako's attention had turned to her copilot. Raleigh was staring at her. _Is it serious_? he asked. He'd seen the bit of blood, knew without asking what it meant. All pilots knew that death didn't always come from the monsters they fought.

Mako simply looked at her copilot, meeting his eyes without flinching, her dull gaze telling him everything he needed to know. _Yes_ , she answered simply. _It's_ _very_ _serious_.

~~~~~

As the crowd broke up, Mako stayed behind to supervise Gipsy's recovery and start the repair and rearmament that was standard procedure after an engagement. As Gipsy's battered form was lowered into her new berth, Mako was already organizing her people, sending runners to Supply, for the parts she knew they'd need, snagging several people who had been assigned to Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha (or at least, those not already stolen by Environmental, and Striker's crew chief), and setting them to visually inspect ever colossal inch of Gipsy. Any anomaly found would have to be immediately corrected. One minute imperfection in Gipsy's hull, at the depths they'd be going to encounter in the Breach, would be enough to kill both Raleigh and Mako instantly. Those originally assigned to Gipsy were tasked with topping up the coolant from when Mako had vented it during the struggle with Otachi, refueling her, repairing the weapons systems, and checking over the air and motion systems for any damage. “Not to good for us, Mako-chan?” one of the section leaders asked snidely as Mako gave him his assignment.

Mako merely eyed him. She knew where this was coming from. The distance that had always existed between pilots and crew, borne largely from the fact that the pilots were generally considered to be too valuable to risk their lives in an active construction bay, had disappeared in her case. The man simply wasn't sure how to deal with a pilot down in trenches with the rest of the peons, much less leading the charge from there. That didn't mean the words stung any less. “I never was.” She replied coolly, “The pilots are the least part of what makes the Jaegers so deadly to the kaiju. Without a competent crew behind them, the best pilots in the world would be unable to so much as land a blow.”

He shut up and got to work without further complaint. Mako focused back on her tasks, to absorbed to even stop by the drivesuit room and change into her normal clothes. She would do so later, she told herself, when Gipsy's repairs were in full swing and Raleigh came to collect her when the shift changed. There was too much to do just then, a million and one details to oversee and no telling when the Breach would open again. They might only have a day or so at most to get ready, the frequency between attacks was shortening – anyone with a functioning brain could see that, given that most recently it had shrunk from a week (Deepthroat's attempt on the Hawaiian Islands to Mutavore in Sydney), to just under three days to the Double Event.

They worked staight through what was left of the night. Finally, just when Mako was starting to relax, just when she'd received word that Gipsy's hull was secure, that her coolant, fuel, and oxygen tanks had been topped up, but the weapons systems were still a mess, the impossible happened. The Alarm sounded. Kaiju attack. “ _All pilots, suit up_.” Tendo Choi's voice came over the public-address system. “ _Operation Pitfall is a go. I repeat, Operation Pitfall is a go_.”

Mako could only stare dumbly at the incredulous faces surrounding her. It was too soon. They weren't ready. But it seemed that the kaiju were.

~~~~~

Mako found Raleigh again back in Hangar One, amidst the frenzied preparations as crews scrambled to make the two damaged Jaegers watertight, if not battle worthy. Tendo was there, having come down from LOCCENT and taken over from Mako, supervising the chaos with a tablet and making sure last minute repairs had all the required supplies. “What's going on?” she asked him. While she'd heard the call to suit up – not that she'd had a chance to remove her drivesuit after returning from vanquishing Otachi – part of her was struggling to believe that this was happening. Otachi and Leatherback had come through the Breach only eight short hours ago.

“Double Event.” Raleigh said shortly.

Mako couldn't believe it. “Again?” she asked, still disbelieving. While she'd known the interval between attacks was growing shorter, this was beyond belief.

Raleigh simply looked at her, and she could tell, merely by the look in his eyes, that he wasn't joking. Mako wasn't sure if it was a side effect of the Drift that was giving her extra insight into his thoughts, into the way he looked, or if he had always had an expressive face that allowed him to be easily read. She...honestly couldn't be sure. Maybe she was projecting what she had gleaned from the Drift back upon her early interactions with him. “Where?” she asked. Now the program had been reduced to a single base, there was the chance that they wouldn't be able to respond in time. That chance had tripled given how damaged their two Jaegers were.

“The Breach. They're not moving, not headed anywhere. We've got to go to them if we want to take them out.” At her look of _keep_ _going_ , Raleigh continued. “I was with Pentecost when the word came. That's direct from Tendo's mouth.”

Mako would have responded, but her attention was drawn to a commotion not all that far away. Chuck. Of course. Mako found herself struggling with resentment at the sight of Chuck, still wearing civilian clothes, Max's leash in his fist, marching up to Tendo to pitch a fit. Then his words reached her, “Well, I can't pilot Striker on my own, now can I?” Chuck challenged, his words all arrogant bluster, but she could hear the bewilderment, and the loss under his words, only partially masked by his typical arrogant challenge. “Dad's hurt, so who's going to be my copilot?”

As if in answer, the main doors under the War Clock opened, and Sensei walked in, clad in a coal-black drivesuit a match to Raleigh's, Herc on his heels. Mako distantly recognized it as Li Qiang's spare, the one that had been held in reserve for Raleigh's copilot, before Mako had been chosen.

Analytically, Mako knew it must be an inspiring sight. The Marshal, suited up to fight one last battle, the _final_ battle, ready to lay it all on the line for his people. But Mako was his next of kin, his medical proxy. She had access to and had read his uncensored medical file, had seen the brain scans. Once his symptoms had become obvious, Sensei had seen several specialists, had even once consulted with the legendary Dr. Lightcap not long before her death. She knew the doctors had been clear, their diagnosis unanimous.

Coyote Tango's neural interface had been raw, rudimentary compared to Gipsy and the later models. The modifications that had protected Raleigh, allowed him to pilot again after going solo for so long had not yet been developed. The two and a half hours he'd spent fighting Onibaba after Aunt Tamsin had collapsed out of the Drift had done permanent damage to his brain. Aside from the advancing cardiovascular damage from long term radiation exposure and his constant use of metharocin throughout his career, he would be fine, so long as he never Drifted with someone again. The strain of the neural handshake would reopen the scar tissue that had formed, and the longer he spent connected to another mind, the worse the damage would grow. And if, for any reason, if he went solo again, he would die in moments. Even the most conservative estimates for Pitfall said that the operation would take several hours, and that was assuming that everything went according to plan, and given that they were down to two, heavily damaged Jaegers, it already wasn't. Even if they won, even if by some miracle Striker survived, Stacker Pentecost would not be coming home ever again.

Mako watched Sensei's approach with barely concealed horror, not being able to even quirk the tiniest of smiles when he stopped in front of their little group – Raleigh, Tendo, Chuck and herself – and joked about the drivesuit's fit, “I don't remember it being so tight.” before moving off.

Mako ran after him, catching up easily. “Getting back into that Jaeger will kill you.” she said desperately, wanting him not to go.

Sensei stopped, and turned to face her. “Not getting into one will kill us all,” he said gently, his decision plain. Mako stared up at him, her heartbreak clear on her face for anyone to read. Distantly, she could feel Raleigh nearby, knew that he was watching, but also knew that he was keeping his distance, giving her as much privacy for this moment as he could, guarding this time against any who would intrude.

Sensei cupped her cheek with one gloved hand. “Listen,” he said softly, love and pride clear in his voice. “you are a brave girl. I'm so lucky to have seen you grow.” Mako felt her eyes fill with tears at his words, her breath hitching in her own ears. “But if I'm going to do this, I need you to protect me.” Sensei said gently.

A tear slid down Mako's cheek. She didn't try to fight it. She wasn't sure she was able to at that moment. They were in a huge room, filled to bursting with people, but right now it felt like she, Raleigh, and Sensei were the only people in the world, her awareness of space contracting to just the three of them. “Can you do that?” Sensei asked, his hand sliding down to rest on her shoulder.

Mako' lips trembled, but she forced herself to nod. She wasn't sure she could manage speech just then. For a moment, Sensei's eyes cut away from her, to Raleigh, evidently seeking the same acknowledgment from him. He must have received it, for he nodded, shortly. “Right,” he said briskly, touching Mako's chin in gentle admonishment, the same way he'd done when she was younger.

Reflexively, she straighted, her shoulders coming up. She would not disappoint him. Sensei followed suit as he raised his voice so as to be heard by everyone in earshot in the massive room. “Everyone!” he bellowed, “Listen up.”

Gipsy stood nearby, having been moved to Hangar One for easier repairs after her triumphant return. Not that anyone with sense would deny her her rightful place in the center of everything, not after what she had accomplished against Otachi and Leatherback. Sensei climbed up on her nearby foot, raising himself above the crowd as they gathered round, the more distant workers seeing their friends drifting over and following. Mako didn't have to look to know when Raleigh stepped up next to her, or when Chuck planted himself on Raleigh's other side.

“Today,” Sensei began, still facing away from everyone. “today...at the edge of our hope...at the end of our time...we have chosen to believe not only in ourselves, but in each other. Today there's not a man or woman in here that shall stand alone.” He turned around, as his eyes swept out over the still-gathering crowd, seeming to catch each and every face. Mako knew the truth of that statement in her bones. While she was a pilot now, destined to head into the Breach to do battle with the monsters lurking in the Abyss; not all that long ago, she had been one of the multitudes that had stood steadfastly behind the Jaegers, who had patched up the damage, re-armed them, and prayed for the pilots safe return, mourning when they did not. They _all_ fought, even if the Rangers were the only ones to go head-to-head with the kaiju.

“Not today.” Sensei continued lightly. Allowing his voice to grow in intensity, he kept going. “Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them! Today we are _canceling the Apocalypse!_ ”

The Shatterdome burst into cheers, the entire installation. Mako wasn't sure how that was possible, but she was sure of it nonetheless. Sensei stepped lightly off Gipsy's foot as the crowd of onlookers threw themselves back into their tasks with new energy, as the pilots moved off as a single unit, headed for the elevators that would bring them up to the level of their Conn-Pods.

Operation Pitfall was on.

~~~~~

As the euphoria of Sensei's rousing speech faded away and reality began to intrude, Mako found herself unable to look away from Raleigh's eyes as the harnesses lowered for their final drop. For his part, Raleigh was unable to look away from her as well, his blue eyes haunted. Both of them knew what was at stake here. Both of them knew just how much damage from Leatherback and Otachi still had to be repaired. Gipsy was watertight again, all the holes in her hull patched up after Otachi had tried to rip her apart, but that was about all that there had been time to do. Both of them knew exactly what their chances of surviving this mission were: they weren't good.

They didn't speak as the techs entered to strap them in. Just looked at each other as the connections were tightened, and the oxygen in their air hoses started flowing, as the Conn-Pod was sealed, and the final checks were gone through.

Finally, Raleigh spoke breaking the despairing silence that existed between them. “You know Mako, all those years I spent living in the past, I never really thought about the future.” his eyes met hers once more as his lips turned up in a self-mocking quirk. “Until now.”

He gave a short laugh, directed at himself. “I never did have very good timing.”

Tendo engaged the Drop, sending them plummeting down into Gipsy's cradle while their eyes stayed locked together. For once, Mako's mind was not on the stomach-churning fall, but on Raleigh's words, and why he hadn't waited to tell her this. If he'd waited just a little bit longer, she would have felt them in the Drift, could feel the emotions that underpinned the words as if they were her own. Finally, she thought she had it. For all of the Drift's immediacy, it could get...muddled, as to who was thinking what, and who was feeling what. And anyone with half a brain and a single working eye could see that the Drift could be a crutch, to the determent of the pilots who relied solely on it for communication. Just look at the Hansens.

But there was no more time for reflection. The Jumperhawk cables at Gipsy's shoulders went taut, hauling Gipsy skyward. Mako could feel the precursors to the neural handshake begin to prick at her consciousness. It was time. Time to destroy the Breach.

They were on their way.

~~~~~

“ _Reaching drop point,_ _disengaging transport_ ,” Tendo radioed from LOCCENT, as both Jumperhawk teams cut the cables and the Jaegers dropped gracefully into the water. They still had a ways to go, but the plan for Pitfall had been clear: drop the Jaegers here, before the bottom dropped away from them, so they could seal all vent ports before venturing into the Deep.

As if hearing Mako's thoughts, Chuck radioed from Striker, “ _LOCCENT, all ports sealed, ready to submerge_.”

Mako met Raleigh's eye as they completed the final checks that sealed Gipsy's ports tight. It was a worry, Gipsy's reactor generated a lot of waste heat, but the topped-up coolant and the chill of the deep ocean should be enough to keep the Jaeger from overheating. “All ports sealed,” Raleigh echoed, his hand on the radio toggle, “Ready to submerge.”

With no more fanfare than that, both Jaegers moved forward, following the bottom as it steadily dropped away from them, heading down into the dark. Seeing only water out of Gipsy's front viewscreen was a new experience for Mako. With how tall Gipsy stood, and with how her previous battles had largely taken place on land, it was disconcerting to see water outside the Conn-Pod, stranger still to see it gradually growing darker, as Gipsy progressed ever deeper. “ _Two actives still in circle formation in the Guam quadrant_.” Herc Hansen spoke from LOCCENT, obviously he was standing in for Sensei, conveying orders, and making sure the active teams stayed in contact and on task. “ _Code names: Scunner, Raiju. Both Category IV_.”

The light was thin, this far down. The powerful spotlights mounted on Gipsy's hull were doing their best, but Mako was increasingly having to rely on the secondary cameras to find her footing. Raleigh reached out to her through the Drift, sharing the memories of Gipsy's previous visits to the Breach, showing her the routes he had used before. It helped, somewhat.

“ _Roger that_ ,” Sensei relayed. “ _Half a mile to the ocean cliff, we jump. It's 3000 meters to the Breach._ ”

The ocean cliff was the first major milestone in the route to the Breach. And after that, things would get dicey. Raleigh remembered that even with Gipsy's lights, there was no visibility at the foot of that cliff. Not to mention, two Category IV kaiju hovering in that general vicinity, just waiting to pounce.

“ _Half a mile?_ ” Chuck shouted over the radio, “ _I can't see a damn inch ahead. How are we supposed to deliver the bomb?_ ”

Raleigh made the decision to switch from actual view, to instrument view. The light had thinned to the point where nothing further could be made out with any degree of clarity. “Visiblity's Zero. Switching to instruments now.”

 _Are you sure that's wise?_ Mako asked, glancing over at Raleigh as he flipped the switch, changing their display. The instrumentation was limited in the types of data it could collect. On the surface, they could see better without it, no matter how dark the night.

 _We need to see what we're doing,_ Raleigh returned. _Much as I hate to admit it, Chuck's right. Otherwise, we'll end up going in circles and never find the Breach._

Down and down they went, Gipsy keeping pace just behind Striker, watching her back. Mako winced at one of the readouts, showing how much silt and sediment each heavy footfall was kicking up, how much every step rocked the ocean's floor. Jaegers weren't subtle machines, they had never been built to be. They had been built to stand toe-to-toe with a kaiju and come out on top. That didn't comfort Mako, knowing that they had to sneak past two Category IV kaiju to get to the Breach, and with how intelligent Otachi and Leatherback had proved, Mako knew that would be a tricky prospect at best.

As if cued by her thought, the radio squawked. “ _Gipsy, you have moment on your right_ ,” Herc warned them. “ _Three o'clock! Three o'clock!_ ” Obediently, Raleigh turned his head, scanning the area. Mako tapped into his vision, seeing what he saw. Nothing. The onboard AI reported the same.

“Right flank's clear!” Raleigh called back, his bewilderment clear in both the Drift and his voice. “I got nothing.”

“ _Left now!_ ” Tendo called down his microphone, clearly tracking something on his display. “ _And moving fast. Fastest kaiju on record!_ ”

 _Well, wasn't that perfect_ , Mako groused. Raleigh flashed her a mental grin, his eyes focused on the feed from Gipsy's instruments, frustration mounting when he still didn't see anything.

“I don't see anything,” Raleigh expelled the words with the force of a shout. “It's moving too fast!”

 _Tamp it down_ , Mako ordered sternly. _If you get too frustrated, you'll lose sight of what we're down here to do._

“ _Eyes on the prize, Gipsy!_ ” Chuck echoed over the radio. “ _600 meters to the drop_.”

Chastened, Raleigh refocused his attention on the task before them as the two Jaegers steadily made their way closer to their destination. First Striker, than Gipsy, reached the underwater cliff, and jumped lightly – well, lightly for a Jaeger anyway – down it. Instantly, all remaining light from the world above winked out. They were in near total darkness,even their instrumentation having trouble picking out detail this far under water. All light came from the menacing glow from the nearby Breach and various hydrothermal vents scattered over the seafloor.“ _400 meters and closing,_ ” Chuck called out. They were almost there, with no further warnings from LOCCENT about kaiju activity, when the game changed abruptly.

“ _Striker! Bogies are stopping. One o'clock_.” came the call from LOCCENT. Ahead of them, Striker came to a dead stop; Mako, Raleigh and Gipsy following her lead.

Evidently, Chuck had other ideas. “ _Marshal, what are you doing?_ ” he near about bellowed at his copilot.

“ _They're stopping_.” was Sensei's stark reply. “ _Why the hell are they stopping?_ ” Unsaid was the reminder that the two kaiju out there wouldn't stop for no reason, not when the two Jaegers were this close. They needed to find out what that reason was.

For being Drifted with Sensei, Chuck was proving to be totally obliviousness to the subtext in his words, subtext Mako heard with ease. Or maybe he was deliberately ignoring it. With Chuck, it was hard to sometimes tell the difference. “ _I don't give a damn sir!_ ” he roared. “ _We're 300 meters from the drop!_ ”

Sensei wouldn't give up. “ _Something's not right,_ ” he insisted.

 _I agree with the Marshal,_ Raleigh told Mako privately. _This feels like a set up. Why didn't that bastard attack us earlier? Why aren't they attacking us now? Something's going on_. _Something big_. Mako felt the five years of bad calls, and slim chances roll up and over her copilot, instincts formed from abruptly finding himself utterly alone in an unfriendly world with no one for backup coming into play, heightening senses, enhancing reflexes, spreading out to encompass her as well.

Herc, watching from LOCCENT, had other ideas. “S _triker, the bogeys aren't following. Take the leap_ now _!_ ” he ordered, his tone strident enough to be a controlled yell. It was something he was very good at.

Abruptly, there was the sound of a scuffle at the microphone, than a new voice came over the radio. “ _Blowing up the Breach, it's not going to work!_ ” Dr. Geizsler babbled, speaking so fast that Mako nearly had trouble following his words.

“ _What do you mean?_ ” Sensei asked, “ _What's not going to work?_ ”

“ _Sir, just because the Breach is open does not mean that you're able to get a bomb through_.” the biologist stated, with a clarity that Mako had never associated with the excitable scientist.

Dr. Gottileb elaborated. “ _The Breach genetically reads the kaiju like a...a barcode at the supermarket and then lets them pass_.”

Raleigh started cursing then, a whole slew of methodical, inventive curses, using at least three languages other than English that Mako could recognize, and two she didn't. She could read the tone of his steady stream of mental invective though, and had to agree with the sentiment. They were _this_ close, _so_ _close_ , and it was looking like the mission had been a failure before it had begun. And if the mission failed, Humanity died. It was that simple.

Dr. Geizsler picked up the thread again. “ _You're going to have to fool the Breach into thinking you have the same code!_ ”

Mako glanced at Raleigh, confusion clear in her eyes. _I don't know_ , Raleigh replied. _You're smarter than me, do you have any idea how we can do that?_ Mako made a face at that. She had no clue, and while she might have more education than Raleigh, but having access to his brain made her doubt his proclaimed lack of smarts. She didn't try to argue though, the Drift made it clear that _he_ believed she was smarter than he was.

Well, she did have one idea, but it was preposterous. Because there was no way that could happen. Those were Category IV's out there, and neither Jaeger was in full fighting shape. Yes, Gipsy had taken on and killed two Category IV's in her last engagement, but that had been only a few short hours ago, when Gipsy had been fresh. There hadn't been time for a full refit to get her back up to strength. It had been clear as soon as they'd dropped that they're only chance of success would be if they could slip past the two Category IV's guarding the Breach. If they picked a fight they were dead meat. “And how are we supposed to do that?” Raleigh challenged.

“ _By making it think you_ are _a kaiju_.” Silence briefly followed Dr. Geizsler's announcement, both on the radio and in the Drift, both Mako and Raleigh too repulsed by the mere suggestion to even bother trying to decrypt that statement.

Fortunately, Dr. Gottlieb was there to clarify matters. “ _You have to lock on to the kaiju, ride it into the Breach. The Throat will then read the kaiju's genetic code and let you pass._ ”

“ _If you don't do it, the bomb will deflect off the Breach like it always has and the mission_ will fail.” Dr. Geizsler finished, finality clearly evident in his last two words, despite his usual rapid babble.

 _Fuck_. Mako cursed. She didn't normally do so, but the situation definitely warranted it. She hadn't wanted to believe it, but there was no denying the facts. Raleigh echoed her sentiments, his mental tone matching hers precisely. She pulsed a hint of amusement at him for the mimicry, his returning volley coming back tinged with regret. Despite his words at the beginning of the mission, despite the hope that had carried them this far, they knew there would be no coming back from this mission. All four of them would die down here, but it would not be in vain. Not if Mako had anything to say about it.

Herc evidently had similar sentiments. Wrestling the mike away from the two scientists, he radioed down, “ _All right, now that you've heard all that, Striker, take the leap!_ ”

“ _Sir! I have a third signature emerging from the Breach_.” Tendo called out.

“ _Third signature, emerging from the Breach!_ ” Herc echoed.

“ _How big is it?_ ” Sensei wanted to know. “ _What Category?_ ”

There was a long, pregnant pause. Finally, Herc answered, something broken in his tone. “ _Striker, it's a Category V. The first ever_. _Codename: Slattern._ ”

Mako stared at Gipsy's display, unable to believe her ears. Beside her, Raleigh existed in a similar state of complete shock. Soon enough, they could see it, rising from the chasm that marked the Breach. It was _huge_ , large enough to dwarf both Otachi and Leatherback, and those had been the biggest Category IV's to date. It _towered_ above Striker, who deployed her thermal sting blades in response to the creature's menace.

But Gipsy was too far away to directly help. Maybe they could have joined the battle then if the plasma cannons had been fully operational, but there had been no time to repair them after Otachi had trashed the systems. They were limited to melee weapons only, which for Gipsy meant the swords Mako had installed, one on each wrist. “Striker, we see him. We're right behind you, about 100 meters. We're going to come around your three o'clock, try to flank him. Standard two-team formation.” Raleigh radioed the other Jaeger, Gipsy already in motion. “Just keep him busy for a few – ”

He cut himself off. A kaiju, Scunner, one of the forgotten Category IV's, lunged out of the deep, heading straight for Mako's position in the Conn-Pod. Raleigh reacted on instinct, managing to swing Gipsy around just enough to catch Scunner head-on, grabbing hold with both hands. Grip secure, Mako joined Raleigh in headbutting the kaiju, relishing the screech that vibrated through the hull as a result. Taking advantage of Scunner's moment of distraction, Raleigh landed a vicious punch, following up on the momentum to tackle Scunner into the seabed.

Mako tried to push Striker and her fight with Slattern out of her head, concentrating only on the fight at hand. She knew, from both her own and Raleigh's experience that attending to anything other than the fight at hand was suicidal. She could do nothing for Striker, for Sensei, for Chuck, until after Scunner had been vanquished. Raleigh's thoughts were full of similar sentiments, with an added dash of pure vengeance directed at their opponent for _daring_ to target his copilot, the same way Yancy had been targeted by Knifehead. She could feel in her bones that Raleigh would not let anything happen to her. Not while there was still breath in his body. That didn't worry her. Aside from Yancy's case, pilots either survived together, or died together. Either both of them came home, or neither of them did.

Raleigh deployed the Chain Sword from his wrist with a quick jerk. _Are you sure that's a good idea?_ Mako questioned. _You don't have the training..._

_I have you._ Raleigh returned. _And it's not like we have a lot of options here._ But scarcely had Raleigh raised his arm to strike Scunner, than Raiju came screaming out of the depths behind them, taking Raleigh's arm clean off at the shoulder, snapping Gipsy around from sheer momentum.

Raleigh screamed in pain at the neural feedback, a mirror to the damage he had taken in Anchorage, while Mako mentally reached for the safeties she'd developed and had installed in Gipsy's operating system, deadening feedback from sections that had taken heavy damage, or – in this case – destroyed. That particular feature had been a reaction to listening to the recordings from Gipsy's fight against Knifehead, hearing the sounds of sustained agony from the Conn-Pod recordings when there was no purpose to be gained from it. She found the correct mental switch buried in Gipsy's programming and threw it, shutting down all connections in the right arm of their circuitry undersuits. It left that arm paralyzed, frozen in place, but no matter. It's not like they'd have the use of it anyway, with Gipsy's gone.

But there was no time to properly recover. Scunner seized its advantage, trying to gain purchase with its jaws on Gipsy's plating. Slowly, painfully, Gipsy regained her feet as Mako deployed her own Chain Sword, the one that had finished Otachi. “Let's _get_ this son of a bitch!” Raleigh screamed as they speared Scunner through its skull and dragged it to a nearby hydrothermal vent, shoving Scunner's face into the superheated water, while the kaiju screeched and wriggled. Finally it managed to force itself away, sliding off the sword as it did so. Mako wanted to pursue it,but a hearty buffet from Scunner's tail nearly took out their right knee, sending them sprawling. Only the sword planted in the sediment prevented Gipsy from falling on her face.

The leg had taken heavy damage. Not as bad as the right arm, the leg was still holding together, if only barely, but all flexibility in the limb was gone. Mako could feel that it wouldn't hold Gipsy's full weight. Her face twisted with pain, she listened to Raleigh's panting breaths as he reached for the same controls she had pointed out to him, deadening the sensation in the afflicted limb.

“G _ipsy, coming up on your 12 o'clock!_ ” Herc warned from LOCCENT. “ _Full speed! Get out of the way!_ ”

Raiju. It had to be. Coming back for another round. But with the damage they'd taken from Scunner, they wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time. Mako knew what she had to do, felt Raleigh's vicious approval of her plan through the Drift, as they shifted Gipsy into a brace position, sword outstretched before them. If Raiju deviated from its course by even a hair they were dead. But if it was on target...

Raiju struck, squarely where they expected it to be. Raleigh reached out through the Drift, grunting with the effort of holding the blade steady with Mako as Raiju's own momentum proved to be its undoing, helping Mako shift the position of the blade to keep it steady as Raiju literally peeled itself apart. Finally, when the pressure had fallen away from the sword, as Raiju's bisected body drifted into the waters surrounding them, Mako fell back on her training; lifting her sword into a formal salute as Gipsy rocked forward onto her knees. _You're fathers would be proud of you for that_ , Raleigh told her simply. _Both of them_. Mako's lips curled into a smile at the compliment.

Scunner didn't stick around to meet Raiju's fate as Gipsy climbed laboriously back to her feet. _Where's it going?_ Mako asked, half-panicked for no reason she could name.

One glance at the display showing both Jaeger's positions, and Raleigh had the answer. _Striker_ , he said grimly. _And they already have their hands full with Slattern. Let's go_. Mako had no argument about that.

But they were too slow. They _knew_ they were too slow. “Hang on, Striker,” Raleigh gasped into the radio, begging the other Jaeger to last long enough for them to help. “We're coming to you.”

Mako couldn't see, her eyes were fogged by unshed tears, but no matter. Raleigh saw what she needed to for her. All the words she wanted to say, to scream, were caught inside her throat as it locked up so tightly she could scarcely breathe. Raleigh spoke them for her, pleading through the radio for Striker to hang on, that they were coming, drawing every ounce of speed possible from Gipsy's crippled frame, trying to run with a shattered right leg, using the remaining sword as a crutch.

 “ _No!_ ” Sensei's voice was firm over the radio. “ _Gipsy, do_ not _come to our aid_. _Do you copy?_ ”

 “Hang on!” Raleigh begged.

 “ _Stay as far back as you can!_ ” Sensei snapped back.

 “We can still reach you,” Raleigh argued, voicing Mako's words from her throat still closed tightly by grief and despair. “We're coming for you.”

 “ _No, Raleigh, listen to me_.” Raleigh blinked back the echo of Yancy's last words, and concentrated on his commander's voice. “ _You know exactly what you have to do! Gipsy is nuclear! Take her to the Breach!_ ”

 “I hear you sir,” Raleigh said heavily. He surged forward in the Drift, started to turn Gipsy around, toward the Breach. “Heading for the Breach.”

 Mako braked, bringing them to a momentary halt. _No, you can't, you're leaving them to die_ , she objected, her heart breaking for both of the lives in Striker's Conn-Pod. Chuck was a bastard, who had made Mako's life miserable on more than one occasion, but he was the closest Mako had to a peer when she was younger, the two of them always just a bit apart from the other children who had followed their families to various Shatterdomes around the world. Even after everything that mattered had come between them, after all their childish dreams had unraveled, after she'd broken things off with him and he'd never forgiven her for it, she still cared for him. She stared at Raleigh, not comprehending her partner's motives for the first time since entering the Drift with him. Or perhaps, she wouldn't _let_ herself comprehend.

 “ _Mako_ ,” Sensei called for her. “ _Listen_. _You can finish this. I'll always be there for you_.”

 Reaching for the control that allowed her to toggle the radio, Mako had to work at her control, fighting with everything in her for composure. Raleigh extended a tendril of rueful sympathy, then withdrew his active consciousness from the Drift, granting her as much privacy as he could for these last moments with her father. “ _You can always find me in the Drift._ ” Sensei finished. Mako had to close her eyes for a moment, squeezing them shut to banish the tears that lurked in their depths. 

When she opened them again, Raleigh was looking at her, pained determination visible in his blue gaze. “We're a walking nuclear reactor,” he said starkly. He spoke aloud, letting the facts fall where they lay, harsh and uncompromising. “We can destroy the Breach.” He flowed back into the Drift, letting Mako hear the words that lurked unspoken beneath the first. _This way, they die with a purpose. They don't die for nothing_. _We can make their sacrifice worth something if we destroy the Breach and_ win.

 It seemed like a lifetime ago that she had spoken the words, but it had only been a few days. Mako recalled her words to Raleigh, not long after she'd met him, him basking the the glow from Gipsy, rebuilt and waiting for him. _“She has a double-core nuclear reactor.”_ If they blew it, overloaded the reactor and detonated the core, it should have a comparable detonation yield to the payload Striker was doubtless arming right at this moment. More than sufficient to collapse the Breach.

  _Right_ , she responded, nodding slowly, her face already tight with grief for what she was about to lose. _We'll need Raiju's carcass. Our passage fee_. With that they moved on, heading away from Striker, back toward their fallen foe, and then, to the Breach.

  _Knew I could count on you._ Raleigh's words, and his faith in her, even as her world crumbled in on itself for a second time, was like a cool touch to a fevered brow, a ribbon of sanity she clung to, even as the ground beneath her feet fell away into the yawning abyss inside her.

 “ _What can we do, sir?_ ” Chuck sounded lost, as both Scunner and Slattern closed in.

 “ _We can clear a path._ ” Sensei said simply. “ _For the lady._ ” Mako didn't know if he was referring to her, or to Gipsy, but did it really matter? Right now it meant the same thing.

 “ _Well, my father always said,_ ” Chuck drawled with false bravado, “ _If you have the shot, you take it! So let's do this_.”

 Mako couldn't imagine what Herc was going through, trapped up in LOCCENT, far away from the action, listening to his son say goodbye. If it wasn't for his broken collarbone, it would be him in Striker now, he'd have been with his son, sharing his thoughts, as close to him as only two Jaeger pilots could be. The radio from LOCCENT was silent, Herc evidently not being able to speak through his impending grief, the catastrophic loss only moments away.

 Mako abruptly recalled that Chuck's legendary anger issues, and his estrangement from his father could both be traced back to when the kaiju Scissure had attacked Sydney back in 2014, when Chuck had been barely ten years old. Faced with the choice of saving either his wife or his son before the nukes that killed the kaiju fell, and unable to save both, Herc had chosen to save his only child, leaving Chuck's mother to her fate. His son had never forgiven him for that choice, his rage still as strong as it had ever been, nearly 11 years after the fact. These days, the Drift was the only thing they had in common, all that kept them in each others lives. Herc had always accepted that rage as the necessary consequence to saving Chuck's life. But it seemed, that in the end, he would lose his son to the kaiju after all.

 “ _It was a pleasure sir._ ” Chuck told Sensei formally. It was almost time. They would wait to detonate until the last possible moment, to be sure they killed both kaiju at once. But both Scunner and Slattern were closing in on the crippled Jaeger fast.

 Mako took her last chance. “Sensei, aishiteimasu.” she transmitted. _Farewell_.

 Striker blew the payload.

~~~~~

The detonation was immense, a rapidly expanding dome of fire that vaporized all water inside it. Mako froze for just an instant, intimidated by the sheer menace of the explosion, but Raleigh wasn't daunted and took immediate control. He knew what to do, bringing Gipsy smoothly to her her knees, using the sword as a brace, working with the explosion's force, rather than fighting against it. _Just like turning a boat into the teeth of a wave_ , Raleigh told Mako, his mental voice soft. _Sometimes you have to go with the flow to survive._

 There was no judgment coming from her copilot, no hint of reproach or reprimand. Raleigh could sense that she was fragile right now, close to coming apart at the seams. Mako had known what to do, had been drilled in it relentlessly at the Academy, but faced with the reality she had frozen. Raleigh ruthlessly cut off any self-reproach before she had time to start. _You just lost your father. You're allowed to make a few mistakes, to fall apart if you need to. He wouldn't have begrudged you that_.

  _But_ – Mako began.

  _But nothing_. Raleigh's mental voice hardened. _Remember how he counseled you after the loss of your birth parents, how he encouraged you to set up a shrine for their spirits, personally carved tablets for their ghosts? How he reacted that one year, the year his sister's tablet joined the ranks of your loss, once you realized where and when he'd lost her? There's no shame in grief, Mako. I had to learn that lesson myself, after Yancy died. I'm here to catch you when you stumble, to prop you up when you fall. We're in this together, Mako. You don't have to bear this burden alone._

The force of the explosion had passed, and for a moment, for the length of a single, long heartbeat, Gipsy was no longer surrounded by water, was in open air at the bottom of the ocean, as fish dropped lifeless to the sediment. Then came the massive deluge, as the dry bubble popped and water came rushing back in to fill the gap. The rush of water nearly flattened Gipsy, rupturing lines, blowing connections. The emergency lights came up, filling the Conn-Pod with blood-red light. “Systems are critical!” Raleigh gasped into the radio, his hand running frantically over his half of the board, “Fuel's leaking, our right leg's crippled.” His eyes met Mako's, the color washed away by the surrounding red glow. “Let's finish this.” Mako bared her teeth at him in reply.

 There was Raiju's corpse. Mako reached down, teeth gritted with the effort. Lacking a right arm, they were forced to sacrifice their crutch in order to grasp the kaiju's bisected body. “LOCCENT, we have the kaiju carcass,” Raleigh reported in. “We're heading for the Breach.”

 It was slow going, given that Gipsy was crippled on her right side. They couldn't actually lift the lifeless body, Gipsy not having the required leveage to heft it up. They were forced to drag it along, inch by painful inch, slowly pulling it to the chasm that marked the Breach, thankful beyond words that all they needed the carcass for was its DNA, that the condition of it mattered not a whit. “You guys better be right about this,” Raleigh transmitted to the two K-Scientists waiting in LOCCENT, “Because one way or another, we're getting this thing done.”

 They were getting close, they were almost there, almost at the fissure that marked the Breach's location, when the unthinkable happened. Slattern, somehow still alive after enduring the massive explosion when Striker Eureka detonated the payload, swooped overhead, and landed in front of them, directly before the Breach. Slattern was visibly hurt, glowing Kaiju Blue coating much of it's torso from a number of oozing wounds, but it's posture was unmistakable: Gipsy would have to go through it to get at the Breach.

  _No_ , Mako moaned. _No_. She wasn't sure what she was denying, that Slattern was there, that Sensei's final sacrifice had not been enough to clear the way, that there was a possibility that Gipsy wouldn't make it to the Breach after all –

  _Don't think like that_ , Raleigh snapped at her, freezing her doubts in their tracks. He reached out through the Drift and forced her fingers to release Raiju's corpse. _We don't need that anymore._ “On my count, rear jets!” he called to her, out loud to shake her from her despair. Mako read his plan, and triggered the Chain Sword for the final time time. Raleigh's plan was crystal clear in his head, simple, with nothing held in reserve. It was brave, it was foolhardy, and it was Raleigh all over. They were going in, and Slattern would go in with them. “Three...two...one. _Now!!!_ ”

 Raleigh hit the jets as Mako readied the sword. Gipsy rocketed forward, her feet blasting off the ground as they slammed into Slattern, bodily knocking it from the ledge and over the chasm that led straight down into the Breach. Mako slammed the sword into the Category V, piercing it through, locking them together. “Hold on!” Raleigh called to her as they went over.

 But Slattern was not done. It's three tails arched over and into Gipsy, the barbs on the ends tearing into her from behind. It was abruptly hard to draw a full breath, but Mako put that down to adrenaline and pushed it from her mind. It didn't matter. All that mattered was staying put, and _killing_ the kaiju they were riding down into the Breach.

 “Hold on Mako!” Raleigh called again. Mako didn't need to look to know what he was doing, preparing to vent Gipsy's built up exhaust right into Slattern's torso. “I'm going to _burn_ this son of a bitch.”

 Raleigh hit the button, and Mako fancied she could _feel_ Gipsy's core open, venting her exhaust in a spray of fiery agony. Slattern screeched and struggled, trying in vain to get away, but Mako held firm, _refusing_ to let go. It had gotten away from Sensei and survived. It would _not_ get away from her.

 Her lungs were burning, almost as if she could feel Slattern's agony. She felt abruptly lightheaded, darkening fog steadily creeping across her brain, making it hard to think clearly, to react to what was happening. With the last of her strength, Mako registered that Slattern had finally gone limp above them, as threads of blue-white lightning reached up from the Breach to embrace them, allowing them access through the barrier that protected the Breach.

 They were through. Mako had just enough strength of will left to retract the Chain Sword back into Gipsy's wrist before her steadily growing weakness engulfed her. She was floating, she was falling, and she could feel Raleigh reaching up through the Drift to catch her, but like in the midst of her memory, when she had chased the RABIT during their test, she slipped through his hands like water, falling into darkness.

At least they'd done it.

They'd won.

 And Mako knew no more.

~~~~~

 The sweetness of air in her lungs.

The touch of a hand on her head.

_...All I have to do is fall...Anyone can fall..._

Darkness.

~~~~~

 Mako woke abruptly. The last thing she remembered was the Breach, Slattern's last efforts to defend it, Raleigh finally killing it by venting Gipsy's nuclear exhaust directly into the Category V. She remembered it getting hard to breathe all of a sudden. And then, nothing.

 She stood up, looked around, pulling off her helmet to free her view. She was on the ocean's surface, in one of Gipsy's escape pods, bobbing gently in the waves, the blue sky nearly bright enough to burn her eyes, adjusted for the darkness of the Breach. And there was no sign of another pod.

  _No_. She couldn't believe it. She _wouldn't_ believe it. Raleigh _had_ to have been right behind her, he couldn't have sacrificed himself, leaving her to go on without him. She had already lost Sensei, already lost the only family she had, she couldn't go on without her copilot. And he _knew_ what it was like to survive your copilot, he _wouldn't_ make her go through that.

 Sure enough, another pod surfaced, just a few yards away from her position. But unlike her own, the top didn't release automatically, shooting off to free the occupant inside. Mako didn't think, just reacted, diving smoothly into the water and mentally blessing all the ancestors of whoever had made sure that pilots could swim while wearing their drivesuits. A few, hard, sure strokes brought her to Raleigh's pod, and she climbed on top of it easily, straddling it and hitting the manual release as she did so.

 There he was, lying so still in the confines of the pod. Mako seized his helmet and chucked it away, unable to bear having even the flimsy barrier of the face-shield between them. She bent over, pressing her ear to Raleigh's mouth, desperate to feel his breath.

 She didn't feel it. “I can't find his pulse,” She choked out, her fingers fumbling above his drivesuit's collar. “I don't think he's breathing.” She tried shaking him, _willing_ him to respond. “Raleigh?” she asked, her voice sounding so young to her own ears, so lost. “Raleigh?” she asked again, when he didn't answer.

 “ _Mako, listen to me_ ,” Tendo's voice sounded in her ear, emanating from the emergency speakers mounted in her suit. “ _It could be that the sensors are not working, we can't be sure_...”

 Ignoring further communication from LOCCENT, Mako hauled Raleigh's limp form up and into her arms, needing to hold him. He was all she had left in this world, for all they had known each other for less than seventy-two hours. Now he was the most precious thing left to her, and she was _loosing_ him, might have already lost him.

 “No, no. Don't go. _Please_ , don't go,” she chanted into Raleigh's ear. And if some of the saltwater dripping onto Raleigh's armor hadn't come from the sea...well too bad. Who cared what anyone else thought at this point. She clung to him, gripping Raleigh ever tighter, as if by sheer force of will she could hold him to life. “Don't go, _please_...”

 “You're squeezing me too tight.” came the soft whisper in her ear. Mako froze, her head coming up from Raleigh's shoulder, her grip on him loosening in sheer surprise. She pulled back, just enough to see Raleigh's face, and he was awake, and smiling at her. “I couldn't breathe,” was Raleigh's rueful explanation.

 Mako couldn't help it. She laughed. Just a small chuckle to start with, that gradually grew in intensity. Raleigh started laughing as well, her relief, and wonder and thunderous joy infecting him, as if they were still bound together by the the Drift. Those emotions grew in intensity as, from LOCCENT, Mako heard,

 “ _This is Marshal Hercules Hansen. The Breach is Sealed. Stop the Clock!!_ ”

 Raleigh gave a whoop when he heard that, hugging her so tightly that her ribs creaked under her armor, giving her an idea of what her own desperate grip had felt like. Despite the pain, Mako gripped him back just as tightly, holding him to her, _needing_ to feel him, alive and whole, against her.

 Finally they subsided, and just were sitting there, atop Raleigh's escape pod, holding hands and gazing mutely into each others eyes. They were Jaeger pilots, they didn't always need words to communicate.

 Finally, Tendo's voice came in their ears again. “ _Mako, Raleigh, we have your position. The choppers are on their way_. _Just, just hang on._ ” Raleigh looked up and away from Mako, as the first rumble of the Choppers began to make themselves obvious.

  _Yep, see 'em_. Raleigh commented to Mako as he met her eyes again. _You ready to face the world again?_

  _Are you?_ Mako questioned. Eventually, this would fade, this absolute awareness of what the other was thinking. But for now, they would take advantage of it while they could.

  _With you? Always._ Raleigh responded, smiling slightly and leaning forward, resting his forehead against her own. Tendo's voice sounded in both their ears again, but they'd long since tuned him out. This was for them. Soon enough the world would intrude, but right now, they were the only two people who existed, who would ever exist in this fragile world they had created together.

 The helicopters buzzed overhead, kicking up spray to surround them, but Mako and Raleigh paid them no attention, too wrapped up in their awareness of each other. They had done it. They had sealed the Breach. Detonated Gipsy's core, and blown the world on the other side of the Breach apart.

It was too soon to tell if the kaiju were gone for good, but for now at least, it was over.

  _They had won._

Overwhelmed by that realization, Mako finally collapsed into Raleigh's arms, sobbing. Crying at last for her loss, for all their losses, for Sensei, for Chuck, for Yancy, for her parents, for the Kaidenosky's and the Wei Triplets, and everyone that the kaiju had ever killed, for everyone who had worked so hard to see this day come to pass, for Raleigh, and for the scared little girl she'd been, who had finally woken up to see that the nightmare was over, and that monsters could once again be relegated to the realm of dreams. Raleigh held her close, his own tears trickling into her wet hair as he let the gentle movements of the water beneath them rock her, rock them both.

Right now, they had all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> reference material
> 
> so, while trolling through Tumbler, I've come across several sites where people actually are trying to wrap their minds around the physics and scientific realities of Pacific Rim and how what we know of science in real life stacks up against it. I've referenced a few here, because that seems to be the kind of thing Mako would be aware of 
> 
> http://pacificrimscience.tumblr.com/post/62121015430/i-was-curious-if-you-had-thoughts-comments-about-the  
> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not-simpler/2013/07/24/pacific-rim-physics-part-1-a-rocket-punch-is-a-boeing-747-to-the-face/
> 
> Glossary 
> 
> furoshiki - Japanese wrapping/carrying cloth. 
> 
> kesagiri - scarf cut. a slash that diagonally crosses the torso, meant to follow the line of a buddhist monk's robe. amazing what watching anime, and reading manga and fanfic based on the same will teach you. 
> 
> Li Xiu Ying - an actual Chinese name I found, meaning "Elegant and brave"
> 
> Li Qiang - similar to the above, meaning "Strong"


End file.
